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EULOGIES 



ON THE LATE 



Hon. Zachariah Chandler, 



DELIVERED IN THE 




Senate and House of Representatives of the United States. 



■onnni 



EULOGIES 



ON THE LATE 



HON. ZACHARIAH CHANDLER, 



DELIVERED IN THE 



SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 



OF THE UNITED STATES, 



ON 



WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2 8, 1880. 




WASHINGTON, D. C. : 
1880. 



ZACHARIAH C HANDLER. 



EULOGIES DELIVEEED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED 
STATES, JANUARY 28, 1880. 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. By the unanimous order of the Senate 
this day has been set apart for tlie delivery of eulogies in commemoration 
of the death of the late Senator from Michigan, Zaciiakiah Chandler. 

Mr. FERRY. Mr. President, the time having arrived for the delivery 
of eulogies upon my late colleague, the announcement in the Senate of 
his death having already been made, I now offer the following resolutions 
and move their adoption : 

Hesolved, ^"'hat the Senate receive with profound sorrow the announcement of the 
deatli of Zac^hariaii Chandler, late a Senator of the United States from the State of 
Michig:an, and for nearly nineteen years a member of this body. 

Resolved, That to express some estimate held of his eminent services in a long public 
career rendered conspicuous by fearless patriotic devotion, the business of the Senate 
be now suspended, that the associates of the departed Senator may pay fitting tribute 
to his public and private virtues. 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is, will the Senate agree to 
the resolutions ? 

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 

Mr. FERRY. I send other resolutions to the desk and ask that tliey 
be read. 

The resolutions w^ere read, as follows : 

Resolved, That the loss the country sustained in the death of Mr. Chandler was 
manifest by expressions of public sorrow throughout the land. 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect for the memory of the dead Senator the members 
of the Senate will wear crape upon the left arm for thirty days. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these resolutions to the House 
of Representatives. 

Resolved, That as an additional mark of respect for the memory of the deceased, the 
Senate do now adjourn. 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is upon agreeing to the res- 
olutions just reported. 

Mr. FERRY. Mr. President, the observance of the Senate this day is 
in memory of no common man, The sterling qualities of his manhood 
none ever dare assail. He wore his faults ui)on his sleeve. Charges of 
his defamers were frivolous and discreditable to themselves ; for of all 
the great men who have lived and died in this generation, there was no 
keener seer, no shrewder organizer, no franker partisan, no truer patriot, 
than Zaciiakiah Chandler. 

The Chandlers of Bedford, New Hampshire, were well-to-do farmers 
of the Puritan Mayflower stock. There, in 1813, he was born, and there 
he passed his childhood, receiving wiiat was then thought a good primary 
education. As the boy grew up his father gave liiin his choice, a college 
training or a thousand dollars to stock a business life. He chose the 
latter, and, with the spirit of adventure which has always marked the 
New England race, he made for western wilds. 

Michigan at that time was a trackless wilderness, whose solitude lay 
unl)roken save by the roar of surrounding waters. Detroit then was a 
town on tlie border, with a population of some five thousand souls. There 
he stuck his stake and began his mercantile career. His main object 
in those days was to win commercial success. This he achieved by his 
self-denial, energy, fidelity, sagacity and integrity. No man worked 



harder, lived more frnjjally, or iiplield a higher standard of business 
morality. Many a night he slept on the floor or counter of his store, and 
many other nights, through the forest roadway, under the light of the 
stars, he traversed the peninsula from point to point, doing business by 
day and pushing his way by night. For several years he thus had been 
toiling, when the great financial crash of 1887 overtook him. Smaller 
country merchants could not meet their paper. Chandler's store in 
Detroit felt tlie wave of disaster, and, gathering up all available effects, 
he puslied for New York and laid before his creditors the exact situation, 
proposing to make to tliem an assignment of all he had. Their answer 
was equally creditable to him and to them : " Chandler, you are too 
good a man to be lost for want of confidence ; go back and go on with 
yom- business, and if you want more goods send on your orders." The 
result showed they had not misjudged. In a couple of years he had 
w^eathered the storm, and paid every debt, dollar for dollar ; and from 
that hour his fortune w^as assured. 

Meanwhile he became most thoroughly identified with his city and 
State. Generally known as a thorough business man, his acquaintance 
with the business men of Michigan w^as better than any one of his asso- 
ciate pioneers. His public spirit led him into all relations with his 
fellow-citizens which promised to promote the welfare of his adopted 
home. Then, in his earlier vigor, he took part in the various organiza- 
tions of the young men of Detroit, and first became known as a speaker 
in the debating "society of the city, attracting special attention by a 
public lecture on " The Elements of Success." At that time the Whigs 
and Democrats were the contending political parties, and Michigan was 
controlled by the then powerful Democratic party, under the distinguished 
leadership of General Lewis Cass, himself a worthy, honored, and in- 
fiuential resident of Detroit. Chandler, as became his 'New England 
origin, sided with the Whigs. His first decidedly political sj)eech was 
made in 1848, at Detroit, one evening, upon a box at a corner of the 
street, in favor of the presidential candidacy of General Zachary Taylor. 
He began that speech by saying in a sj)rightly way that one of the rea- 
sons he had for su])porting his candidate was that his name was " Old 
Zach," a name he honored, for his name too was " Zach," scarcely dream- 
ing as he said it that thirty years afterward, from the platform of a 
crowded hall in a great city west of Detroit, on the eve of his death, he 
himself, as " Old Zach," w'oidd be greeted by admiring thousands of his 
felloAv-citizeus, assembled to hear the last and ablest si^eech of his life. 

From the election of General Taylor to the Presidency, Chandler 
took a more active part in the local politics of Michigan. In IS'il he was 
chosen mayor of Detroit, against the powerful influence of his political 
opponents, through his personal popularity. The next year lie was 
nominated by the Whigs for governor of tlie State ; but the time for party 
change had not then come, and he sustained defeat. Undaunted he bore the 
taunts of Democratic leaders in those days, who contem])tuou!sly smiled 
upon his political aspirations and jeered him with the hint that a mere 
merchant and business man should never aim so high ! 

Controversy in national politics gradually ripened a new order of things. 
The issues forced upon the people by the repeal of the Missouri com- 
promise and the consequent scenes in Kansas gave birth to a new party, 
whose history should surpass all others since the foundation of the Gov- 
ernment. Chandler was one of the fathers and founders of that 
republican party, and, notwithstanding his pretensions were so derided 
by his political adversaries, he displaced the honored Democratic Cliam- 
pion, General Cass, by taking his seat in the Senate of the United States 
on the 4th of March, 1857. 

In a single week after his election to this high place he had retired from 
an active and large merchantile business, with all its affairs definitely 



arranged, that private matters should not divert him from his more 
responsible duties to the people of State and country. When this change 
of pursuit occurred he was in business capacity the peer of Astors, 
Stewarts and Vanderbilts. The secret of success he had found. His 
wealth, already assured, was so disposed that before his death he was 
accounted with the country's millionaires. The energy and zeal which 
had wroiiglit out so large a fortune was now directed to questions of 
public interest which for years lie had seen arising, and had been prepar- 
ing himself to meet, with a faith as clear as his courage was invincible. 
Elected to this body, he continued a Senator for three consecutive terms 
ending March 4, 1S75. At the choice for the fourth term he was defeated, 
when the qualities of the man shone forth as never before. Silent ami 
serene he bided his time. He well knew that the body of the State was 
with him, and that he had been abandoned by a handful of men who in an 
hour of fatality were incapable of measuring either him or themselves. 
Knowing it was unjust, he felt sure that his own State, for which he had 
labored for years, would on the first occasion riglit the blundering wrong. 
She was early to discover and prompt to correct her mistake. Happily* 
too, that she rejected the example of the Greeks, who persecuted their sages 
and heroes to death, then afterward repented in monuments and teiu'S. 
The interval of loss to the State was gain to the nation. The lapse 
proved auspicious. It was needed to furnish opportunity for his command- 
ing business capacity and Spartan virtue to display on another held. 
Retiring from the Senate did not long end his public service. The 
Department of tiie Interior, one of the most important and complicated 
branches of the (jrovernment, was suffering under the cloud of evil repute. 
He was invited by President Grant to assume its charge, and, in October' 
1875, took the office. Those wlio knew him well at once predicted that he 
would clear that Department of long-prevailing scandals, and manage its 
affairs vigorously, wisely, honestly, and for the best interests of the 
country. How well he met this expectation the record of his official 
relations to it will best answer. Upon the inauguration of President 
Hayes, Chandler was superseded and returned to his home in Detroit 
ending apparently his official life. For himself he could well then, and 
honorably, withdi'aw from all active participation in the political strug- 
gles of tlie day ; but the public felt a loss which he alone could repair. 
On the resignation of Senutor Chiistiancy, by whom he was defeated, he 
was replaced in the Senate by an overwhelming voice of the Legislature 
of his State, and at once resumed his seat here, which he held to the 
close of the late extraordinary session. 

To justly take the measure of this man we must recall the times and 
associates of his labors. Chandler first came to his senatorial seat at 
the called session of March, 1857. He stood up in this Chamber and took 




Dixon, of Connecticut ; Wade, of Ohio ; Doolittle, of Wisconsin ; Mal- 
lory, of Florida ; and J effersou Davis, of Mississippi. That oath was 
administered by Mason, of Virginia ; and faithlessly as some came to 
regard it. Chandler meant every word of it, officially lived it, in his last 
public words in the presence of assembled thousands, glowed with it and 
dietl with the supreme joy of having through all tests of ambition, fortune 
and peril obeyed its obligations faithfully to the end. On taking his seat 
and casting about liim he saw the veterans of the Senate, the venerable 
fathers and orators of the Kepublic, and men, too, as he gazed, wlio even 
then were preparing for the revolt upon the contingency of an adverse 
Presidential election. He saw Breckenridge, of Kentucky, just then 
sworn into the office of Vice President of the United States and President 
of the Senate. He saw here then as seen now, a Democratic majority 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 



and the leading spirits of the then policy of that proud party. There 
were, the venerable Butler, of South Carolina •, Slidell and Benjamin, of 
Louisiana ; Toombs, of Georgia ; Houston, of Texas ; Johnson, of Ten- 
nessee ; and greatest, if last, Douglas, the giant, of Illinois. And among 
the master spirits of the policy of the broadest liberty as the true con- 
struction of the national charter, were Seward, of New York ; Wade, of 
Ohio ; Hamlin and Fessenden, of Maine ; Sumner and Wilson, of Massa- 
cluisetts ; Hale, of N^ew Hampshire ; Crittenden, of Kentucky ; Collamer 
and Foot, of Vermont ; Broderick, of California ; Harlan, of Iowa ; Cam- 
eron, of Pennsylvania ; and Trumbull, of Illinois. Many of these were 
lawyers and statesmen of ripe experience in these Halls, some of whom 
had sat with Calhoun and Clay and Webster and Benton, sharing in the 
debates of those giants of earlier days. Ciiandlek, fresh from the 
counter, had many things to learn : but he was not long in taking his 
bearings. The whole country was then profoundly agitated. President 
Buchanan was surrounded by Cass and Cobb, Jacob Thompson, Toucey 
and Floyd, Brown and Black, and Chief Justice Taney. Filibuster 
Walker was manoeuvering in Southern waters, tlireatening by his pirati- 
cal movements to embroil the nation in foreign war ; the Kansas conflict 
was raging with increasing fury, and Abraham Lincoln, then a quiet 
couiitry lawyer in Illinois was carefully noting the situation and uncon- 
sciously bracing for his herculean labor. Chandler lost no opportunity 
to express concern for manifest disregard for the welfare of the North 
and AVest. Observing this early, in placement on committees in the first 
session of the Thirty-fifth Congress, when committees were announced, 
he rose and in earnest but dignified remonstrance said, "■ Sir, we are not 
satisfied, and we desire to enter our protest against any such formation 
of the committees as is here proposed ;" and, on one of his first measures 
— a bill to deepen the Saint Clair Flats — said, " I want to see who is 
friendly to the great Northwest and who is not, for we are about making 
our last prayer here. * * * After 1860 we shall not be here as beggars. " 
Upon the questions of more general character in the iiational policy he, 
with becoming reserve, deferred in debate to more experienced members ; 
but when measures were proposed which he could not indorse, he was of 
such a mold that he could not sit by in silence. His face was squarely 
set against the Lecompton constitution and the acquisition of Cuba. His 
speeclies on those projects are among the most telling protests raised in 
the Senate upon kindred measures. In the fiercer debates which followed, 
the custom of the duello— popular at the South, but deprecated at the 
North — received new life. Menace and insult had reached their limit. 
They were no longer to be borne. Chandler, Wade, and Cameron 
signed a compact to fight on the first provocation. It certainly was a 
bold step ; but it was effectual. Chandler and Wade soon had occasion 
to act upon their purpose. Seward's " irrepressible confiict " drew insult, 
and Chandler took up his cause. Sumner was smitten down and Wade 
repelled the dastardly act. Whatsoever may be said of tlie means they 
employed, the code thenceforth practically came to an end. Chandler 
was as ready with words as with blows. When the John Brown raid at 
Harper's Ferry was under discussion his allusion to the fury which sealed 
the fate of those whose zeal for human liberty knew no bounds, was a 
most biting piece of satire. 

if- 

Said he — 

seventeen men were to attack the city of Detroit in any capacity, and the mayor should 
appoint as a guard more than seventeen constables to take care' of them, the city auditor 
would decline to audit the account. He would not pay it. 

His foresight was even more remarkable than his fearless, patriotic zeal. 



ZACHAKIAH CHANDLER. 



In t2ie great presidential contest of I860, when four candidates were be- 
fore the people and the whole land was kindled to the highest state of ex- 
citement, his belief that on the success of Lincoln hinged the life of the 
nation made him most active and conspicuous in the campaign. He may 
be said to have been the triumphant knight of that great tournaineiit. 
When Congress assembled, following this presidential race, he, witli oth- 
ers, saw the national heavens black with portent. He watclied with anx- 
iety the days of winter unfolding signs of national disintegration, and 
marked the powers of national self-preservation scattered, and the Chief 
Magistrate in grave message declaring the (xovernment powerless to pre- 
vent separation. In these and other unmistakable signs he read the deej)- 
seated purpose of destroying the Union, and when a peace convention of 
all the States was called to meet in AVashington he could not restrain or 
disguise his judgment. The cry for ''peace " then, and under such indi- 
cations and preparations, was to him a pretext, the outcome of which was 
war. He so penned a private letter to the Governor of Michigan, which, 
purloined, was made the subject of mock solemnity of horror by Powell, 
of Kentucky, and the occasion for Richardson, of Illinois, to taunt him 
with the authorship of what has come to be known as ''Chankleu's 
blood-letting letter." Chandler's reply to these was a manly, frank 
utterance, and such a scathing arraignment of the scheme of secession 
and rebellion that the loyal spirit of the country was roused ; mock ora- 
tory in the Senate for the time put at rest, and this famous letter signal- 
ized as the one prophecy of patriotic foresight which the muse of history 
writes down sadly fulfilled. It was by him tlien memorably said that 
peace conventions would prove vain and fruitless. The 4th of March 
found many seats in this Chamber vacated. Subsequent events developed 
seven States of tlie Union organized at Montgomery into a separate gov- 
ernment, with Jefferson Davis its president and Alexander H. Stephens, 
now a distinguished member of the other House, its vice-president. Fort 
Sumter invested, fired upon, and war suddenly opened on a generation 
that had as little practical knowledge of war as belief that arms were to 
settle what votes had legally expressed as the will of loyal people. The 
lack of tlie art and practice of warfare was, however, more than made up 
by the spirit and enthusiasm for the old flag, which knew no bounds. 

Of the few rare men reared and raised into prominent place by an all- 
wise Providence for the matchless struggle, Chandler was one. He had 
in a large measure tlie very qualities to animate and inspirit a brave and 
willing, Ijut unmartial people, loving country above peace and life. Such 
men were needed to quicken and encourage the forces on the field amid 
the reverses wliich fell to our Army during the first years of the war. 
Congress met in December, '61 ; a great shadow lay on the loyal heart ; 
undismayed, and firm and hopeful midst disaster. Chandler was the first 
to move in this body a committee on the conduct of the war, which was 
on the part of the Senate, composed of Wade, Chandler, and Johnson. 
And well did it perform its great task. Reports from it fill seven large 
volumes of the public records. To give a glimpse of tlie character of its 
work, and the lamentable national situation calculated to appall the 
bravest, it seems due at this time to this stout heart that his own words 
should voice that work and that situation. He said in this Senate, July 
16, 1862 : 

At an. early day in the present session of Congress the Committee on the Conduct of 
the War was raised. * * » The committee has been in constant, almost daily, com- 
munication with the Administration, and has from time to time submitted sucli infor- 
mation as, in their opinion, should be furnished to the Executive. How valuable this 
information may have been to the Administration is not for ine or the committee to de- 
cide, but, in my opinion, when the history of the war shall have been written the coun- 
try will give credit where credit ig due. 

The last one of that valiant trio of tliis body has gone to join his col- 



leagues where just merit is rewarded ; and on this occasion and in this 
presence, one voice at least of that country, shall say that it already gives 
and will thenceforth " give credit where credit is due. " As to the situa- 
tion, he continued : 

The battle of BuU Run seems to have been the culminating point of the rebellion. Up 
to that time the North hardly seemed to appreciate the fact that we were in the midst of 
war; that a gigantic and wicked rebellion was shaking the very foundation-stones of our 
political institutions; that the rebels meant a bloody, fratricidal war. The firing upon 
Sumter was considered rather the action of a frenzied mob than the fixed, determined 
intent to break up and destroy the best Government the world had ever seen. That bat- 
tle left the enemies of the country masters of the field and virtually besiegers of the cap- 
ital. From that 21st day of July, 1861, the nations of the earth considered the experiment 
of republican institutions a failure, or at least an untried experiment. Rebellion had 
triumphed, and the nations believed the Republic was tottering to its fall. Our securities 
became valueless outside our borders, and our armies to be raised were considered men in 
buckram. Not so the brave and loyal millions of the North. They knew that the resources 
of the North had not been touched, that the battle of Bull Run was but an insignificant 
skirmish, without results to either side, and forthwith began to put forth their mighty 
energies. Up to this time the earnestness of this rebellion had not been appreciated by 
the North. 

Later than this painful recapitvilation of our then sorry condition, and 
in the second year of the war, our fortunes proved no better than the first. 
Repeated disasters not only thinned our ranks and spread distrust of suc- 
cess, but made the enemy bold and defiant. The hearts of the loyal peo- 
ple sank within them. A peace party began to develop in their midst. 
McClellan, the popular idol of the hour, was at the head of the finest army 
the world ever saw. Instead of fighting the enemy in the field, peninsula 
malaria was permitted to decimate that army, which later, emerged from 
the seven days' disaster in covering an inglorious defeat. Still an idolized 
commander, no one dared arraign him — notwithstanding the Union cause 
was on the brink of ruin— till on the 1st day of July, 1862, Zachariah 
Chandler pronounced his master speech on the conduct of the war, and 
closed by demanding the removal of McClellan. It fell like a tliunder- 
bolt, but it cleared the sky. From that hour hope, and new vigor, stirred 
the masses of the North. 

To speak of his labors during the years of the war— how watchful, use- 
fid, tireless, fearless, hopeful, defiant, and active everywhere — would be to 
reflect upon the memories of our country and households for whose 
sake he battled in this Senate and elsewhere •, visited field and camp ; 
viewed the hospitals ; cared for the maimed and dying ; cheered and up- 
bore the President and his sorely pressed Cabinet, until victory perched 
upon the Union banner. Congressional records will reveal the multiplied 
forms in which his sagacious and practical mind shaped the measures 
which were so vital during the years of the war, and which now stand as 
the policy of the (lovernment, and his memorial legacy, bequeathed to a 
saved and grateful nation. 

Of his labors since that period, time will not permit me to speak at 
length. As chairman of the Committee on Commerce of the Senate, and 
of which he was a member at his death, he imparted to its varied labors 
that freshness and vigor of thought and breadth of suggestion for which 
he was ever noted. As in war, so in peace, anything whicli concerned 
the honor of, or advanced American interests never escaped his ready at- 
tention. Whether at home or abroad, her rights and welfare were to him 
of tlie first importance. To the revenue and financial measures Mdiich 
have contributed to restore the nation to a condition of prosperity, and 
have raised our commercial credit and standing to the front rank with 
the powers of the globe, he gave the aid of his rare experience and ripest 
judgment. Occupied with the exhaustive labors that grew out of the at- 
tempt to destroy the Union by force of arms ; with the care, thought, and 
legislation demanded to i)rovide adequate organic guarantees to forever 
remove the source of. national division ; to assure to slaves made free 



their rightful citizenship, and utterly extirpate every vestige of electoral 
disqualification ; to retire to tlie body of the people an army millions 
strong ; to safely reconstruct and restore desolated States ; to re-estab- 
lish civil service ui)on the basis of preference given to maimed Union 
soldiers in Government emv>loy ; to provide ways and means to meet the 
cumulative obligations of the nation :ind place the money of the people 
upon a safe and stable basis ; to prove that under monarchies and not 
republics, ''laws are silent in the midst of arms"— since all the functions 
of i:)0])ular sovereignty went on with uninterru])ted i)recision— I repeat ; 
with care for all these subjects, Mr. ('handler found time and occasion 
to guard as well against any acts encroaching upon our rights and just 
relations with nations abroad, as to watch and advance the supremacy of 
the political party charged witii the defense and welfare of the nation at 
home. lie otfered and advocated a resolution for reclamation upon (Ireat 
Britain for the destruction of our sliipphig l)y the Anglo-confederate 
privateers at sea ; discussed non-intercourse with England ; S|)oke with 
indignant fervor upon the raids from Canada, and urged a termination 
of the reciprocity treaty with that DoLuinion. He as freely denounced 
European despotism on this continerit and raised his voice against its 
usurpations. He submitted a resolution of inquiry into the alleged acts 
of the Mexican imperial government toward the ohicers and men of the 
Juarez party, who were reported to have suffered deatli by order of Maxi- 
milian. His si)eech on this resolution was the liold denunciation of a 
soul burning with indignation at tlie intrigues and cruelties by which a 
hated throne had been set up on repul)lican soil, uMered, too. at a time 
when our word was thought in Europe to have lost its prestige and power. 
He said of this imperial intruder : 

If this man, under similar circumstances, had been captured in Austria he would havn 
been whipped to death ; Frnnce would have put him in a cave and smothered him with 
smoke; England would have blown him to pieces at the muzzle of her guns. I thinlc 
Mexico made a mist.ake. He had forfeited tiie right to die a soldier's death. 

No one, I believe, ever doubted Chandler's courage to be equal to any 
emergency, public and personal. 1 ca,n recall but one occasion in my 
long acquaintance with him when he seemed disheartened and borne 
down by the force of public events. It Avas when President Johnson, at- 
tempting the removal of the great War Secretary, Stanton ; quarreling 
with the then famous liero of the war. General Grant, and defying the 
Congress of the United States, escaped impeachment so narrowly. 
Chandler felt that republican government was tlien at stake and im- 
peachment a necessity. ISTever was there a time when he came so nigh 
desi)airing of the Republic as at that event. He, however, as others, ha[)- 
pily learned that a republic tliat could survive the tragic loss of its be- 
loved martyr President, and live under the misrule of an ignoring acces- 
sion, has beneath its destiny a. Divine grasp which gives assurance of its 
survival of all human device or human ill. 

JSIen die but the liepublic lives. This Senate, as well as the country, 
will, however, miss Senator Chandler. Upon many and varied topics 
he siiared in debate ; direct, forceful, and accurate, he spoke with effect. 
He at times was matched with the foremost of his associates and seldom 
had to retract or surrender his pro])ositions. His discussions with the 
classical and accomplished Suiuiicr are striking examples of his accuracy 
and force in all matters of substantial fact and interest. 

In the session of 1874-75 In; was putting forth Ids ripest powers in sup- 
port of measures wliich he thought would tend to the general prosperity, 
relieve commercial depression, and bring back better times. 

When his senatorial term exi)ired liis expectaticni was that the State 
he had honored and served would mark its approval by his return to the 
Senate for another term. Changes, however, of a partisan character had 
occasioned the alienation of many supporters of tlie Republican party in 



10 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 



several of the States of the Union. The Democratic party had thus gained 
the ascendency in enough of those States to place the House of Represent- 
atives in their hands. Micliigan was more or less affected, and some of 
its old friends had turned away from the Republican party in that State, 
as well. The Rei)ublican majority in the Legislature was in a measure 
reduced. Though he received the nomination of his party friends, yet 
in the elective contest he was defeated, through the fusion of a few mem- 
bers with his political opponents. Never di<l he carry himself througli 
any struggle with a loftier crest. He scorned to stoop for so glittering a 
prize. 

This defeat did in no wise abate his zeal for the party which had failed 
to return him to his seat in the Senate. Chosen chairman of theliepuljli- 
can national committee, although tlien filling the place of Secretary of 
the Interior, he promptly accepted its burden and actively entered ui)on 
the presidential campaign of '76. It is needless here to mention the 
causes which had depressed the ardor of the people and had alienated 
many from the support of tlie party in power. Chandler, witha trained 
hand organized tlie camjiaign, and, tl'.rough all the summer of fear, and 
doubt, his unquailing si)irit directed its movements. When the hearts of 
others began to fail, he rose in tlie might of his energy and infused new 
courage to all around him. At length, when the decisive day had come and 
gone, and many waited in painful suspense weary days, for the tidings of 
the result, he, with the first consciousness of the truth, sent forth from 
the city of New York that ever memorable dispatch : " Hayes has 185 
votes and is elected." And so it proved. Through all the tempest of the 
electoral count, tlie clamor, outcry, threats, defiance, fierceness, and bit- 
terness of contending partisans, rank and file, that prophet-sentence 
brooded in the air ; and Mdien tlie 4th of March arrived the nation joined 
in the fact, and Rutherford B. Hayes was inaugurated President of the 
United States, and you, Mr. President, duly installed Vice-President and 
President of this august body over which you preside with impartial 
ability. 

Placed also at the head of the Republican State central committee of 
Michigan for the fall campaign of '78, the happy result shoM^ed that his 
interest in his own State in no wise flagged. The State did not forget his 
national and State work. When, by the resignation of Senator Christiancy 
a vacancy occurred here, Cliandler was chosen by the Legislature 
with substantial unanimity to fill the place, with manifest gratification on 
his part, and expressed satisfaction on the part of many of his former 
associates. 

The closing days of the late extraordinary session record another chap- 
ter in his remarkable history. The debate on the bill to pension the sol- 
diers of the Mexican war brought Jefferson Davis conspicuously before 
the Senate. Fervid encomiums were pronounced upon him ; till from 
the gallery floated down and passed among Senators, this waif, " There 
seems to ije no one here that dares call treason by its right name." AVhen 
CitANDLER read it he quietly remarked, " There will lie some one before 
the debate is closed. " At three o'clock in the morning he rose and de- 
livered that philippic which will never cease to be famous in the annals 
of our national polemics. Nor will any of us ever forget the last time 
he addressed the Senate. Senators know well, and the country minds 
well, the i)urport of his thoughts as in closing he said, "As a Senator of 
the United States and a citizen of the United States I appeal to the peo- 
ple. It is for those citizens to say who'is right and who is wrong." 

Congress disjiersed and in a few days he went back, as he declared he 
would, to the people. In several of the States there were approaching 
elections. Political excitement surged over the whole country. Many 
prominent men took part in the canvass of States and did efficient work 
everywhere, but no one was held in greater request than he. It is not 



ZACHARfAH CHANDLER. 11 

now invidious to say it. For the first time a Detroit merchant was sum- 
moned to New En<>Iand to recount tlie political situation. It was my 
l)leasure to witness his f^ratification on readino; the telegrapliic invitation 
from the scholarly courtesy of the Senator from Massacliusetts near- 
est me. He traveled thousands of miles ; spoke during the season at 
various places in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin. 
Wending his way homeward, he spoke at Chicago the evening of the 
night of his death to what the Senator from Illinois near me, who nobly 
stood by him. has said, was the finest audience ever assembled in the 
great city of the West on any political occasion, and delivered what his- 
tory will write, the greatest forensic aichievement of his life. He spoke 
as one already chosen for the shaft of death. His counsel seemed the 
utterance of a dying father. Never was he more inspired, direct, power- 
ful, and convincing. Of his party he there said : 

Tne KepubUcan party is the only party that ever existed, so far as I have been able to 
ascertain, which has not one single, solitary unfaithful pledge left— not one. The Kepub- 
Ucan party was created with one idea, and that was lo preserve our vast territories from 
the bUffhting curse of slavery, and we saved them. But we did more than that. We 
pledged ourselves to save your national life ; we saved it. We pledged ourselves to save 
your national honor, and we saved it. We pledged ourselves to give you a homestead 
law ; we gave it. We pledged outselves to improves your rivers and harbors, and we 
did it. We pledged ourselves to build you a Pacific railroad ; we built it. And not to 
weary you, the last pledge we gave was that the very moment we were able we would 
redeem the obligations of this great Government in the coin of the world; and on the 
1st day of January, 1879, we fulfilled the last pledge ever given. Notwithstanding all 
this they say your mission is ended and that you ought to die. 

The multitudinous huzzas that greeted this closiucv effort of an event- 
ful career made it the proudest moment of his life, when he was never 
so appreciated, and never so dear to the loyal heart of the American peo- 
ple. 

A fitting finale to the sad disclosure of the morning dawn. " Chandler, 
dead," as the lightning bore it on the mournful Saturday morning, stir- 
red the soul of this people with the saddest tidings since the assassina- 
tion of Lincoln. Alone, in his chamber, where he had retired for the 
night, he cast his harness off, and the morning of November 1, 1879, dis- 
covered to the nation a loss which sent a shrill and shock as if some mon- 
arch of the forest had fallen. The people mourned as for a prince departed. 

To have given in any manner a faithful touch of the public career of 
this earnest man without recaJling great landmarks in the progress of the 
nation, with which he was identified, would be the play of Hamlet with 
Hamlet's part left out. Simply to characterize him has been my purpose, 
and to show 'mid what shoals he steered with safety. Words would fail 
to analyze such a spirit. Acts were the methods of his life, and national 
struggles must be retold to do even partial justice to one wlio, with their 
rise and fall, fought to win. Action was the eloquence of his life. He 
who is ever disturbed by the recital of the rugged i)athway of the Republic 
fails to learn that with nations, as with men, mistakes are the steps to 
success. Those who made them need not spurn the mention of them, for 
they have occasioned the grandeur of our national growth ; those who 
won by them need but joy over them, for without them slavery with its 
woe, in the place of liberty with its glory, would to-day be the inlieritance 
of the nation. 

What more shall I say of him V Ile^was emphatically a self-made man, 
shaped on a giant mould ; of intense konviction and resistless will ; a 
rough, rudely-cut diamond, unpolished by culture of the schools. \n 
strength massive, in sense surpassing, in mental force subduing, in fidel- 
ity steadfast, and in straightforward honesty as transparent as the crystal 
which from every angle refiects the liquid light. Little did he care for 
theories. This, all liis speeclies show. We have learned how he toiled in 
the early years of his life, and how, when the time came, he wove his ow^l 
personality into the web of the national fabric. His arguments were 



aaamsaBOBBSK 



12 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 



living things. His sentences were catapults. He went right to the core 
of every matter. He dealt with marrow, while bone and flesh were left 
to their own decay. He was as disinterested in the public service as man 
well can be. 

It cost him time and money to serve his country. He asked nothing in 
return but a place for service. His aspirations for office were laudable ; 
position he used as a means to an end, and that his country's good. A 
man of deep feeling, but his impulses always took a practical turn. It 
was not rose-colored sentiment, but vigorous thought and rugged act that 
filled the measure of his life. 

^V ith all Ins public labors he never lost his fondness for home. In wife 
and daughter and grandchildren was garnered unabating devotion. By 
the frankness of his nature, the ease with which he was approached, and 
Ijy his broad and ready sympathy, his hold upon his friends and attach- 
ment of the masses, gave him hosts of zealous followers. 

Floral tokens of admiration and affection were various and plentiful at 
his funeral rites. Crowning his casket was a characteristic tribute from 
the custodian of his business interests. It was a tablet of white azaleas, 
across which, with beautiful violets was traced, '■ Faithful to the end." 
The procession to his last resting place was a remarkable scene of devo- 
tion. A violent snow-storm prevailed, and yet, from home to grave, the 
avenues were literally thronged with men and women, defying storm, to 
pay their mournful tribute to their distinguished dead. 

Chandler's memory rests not alone in the measures which have 1)6- 
come a part of the policy of the Covernment, or in the many phases of 
his active life, but dwells largely in the hearts of his countrymen. Time 
will best award him his rightful meed. To that just arbiter, as an at- 
tached friend and colaborer, I submit his varied career, from which I 
make no appeal. 

In closing my humble triT)ute to his fame, I cannot forget to note that 
he never left a doubt upon the minds of others. Avherever he moved, that, 
however he may have faltered at times and ways himself, he held with 
reverence and faith that belief which reckons life but the vestibule of im- 
mortality. All forms of infidelity he despised. If he did not always 
practice, he often recognized his highest obligations. A touching instance 
of this was the sad occasion of his ))urying a brother in a land of strang- 
ers, at dead of night, in the di'eariness of rain. As the body of that 
brother was let into the grave without Christian word of parting, with 
none to voice a single sentiment of faith or hope, he himself bowed his 
knees to the earth, and there, in the pitiless storm, offered prayer to Al- 
mighty God. He did not forget, but generously befriended the Christian 
cliurch. Into the secrets of his heart, on that last solemn morning, when 
alone he met his God, we dare not, and, indeed, we cannot penetrate. 
Immortal now, he rests with One, who gives supreme value to all that is 
good in life, and, what is infinitely more, •• He doeth all things well." 

We have seen the nation mourn as the heroic figures that held sway in 
trying periods of our history passed to the dust of death — Lincoln and 
Stimton, Chase, 8eward, Sumner, Wade, and Morton, and the thronging 
procession, of valiant captains and uaen who wrought out the salvation of 
the Union. Added now to the roll is ChajSTDLEK. 

All these are borne upon the hearts of a grateful people Avho delight to 
honor, but who are powerless to recall. With no murmuring, but rather 
with liopeful spirit, do we trust steadfastly in that Providence by whose 
mysterious courses kingdoms and republics rise and fall ; and do we rev- 
erently speak of that Being whose designs embrace countless myriads of 
men, by whose almighty will all nations live, and in whose omniscience, 
the vast future of our beloved land is at this moment folded up. 

Mr. ANTHONY. Mr. President, this scene and this occasion renew 
to me the shock which I experienced when the sorrowing wires unladed 



vmuMiwjwmjmfJum/amiammMmnmi'.immmsiimimu-jmm 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 13 

their bnrflen of pn'ief :ind told me tliut Ciiandt.er was dead. It is diffi- 
cult to associate Zachariaii Chandler with the idea of death. His ex- 
uberant vitality, his overflowiiisj spirit, his cornmandiiiir air and presence, 
all forbid it. I almost look to see his manly and vigoroiis fij^ure — fit tene- 
ment of his manly heai't and his vigorous intellect — rise from his accus- 
tomed seat, towering above his jjeers in this Chamber ; I almost listen for 
that voice whose stentorian tones these walls have so often sent bacli to 
our ears. 

Born and educated in New England, passing the maturity of his years 
in the West, he u)iited. in an uncommon degree, the qualities and charac- 
teristics of each ; the shrewdness, the steadiness, the keen ol)servation, the 
inflexible puri)ose of tlie one; the freshness, the eager earnestness, the 
sturdy robustness of the other ; the fidelity, the truthfvUness. the manli- 
ness of both. His sincerity was beyond question ; his honest belief in the 
princiiiles which he i)rofessed was never (lisjmted ; he meant what he said, 
and he said all that he meant. He had no lialting oi)inions ; he had a judg- 
ment, and a decided judgment, on eveiy question that was presented to 
him ; and although at times he seemed to be hasty of si)eech, it was the 
haste of the occasion, not the haste of sudden conviction or of uncontrol- 
lable impulse. Those who knew him intimately knew how closely he had 
studied, how dee]»ly he had thouglit upon the questions that he discussed 
Avith a])parent suddenness, and tliat his impulsiveness of manner followed 
long and careful examination of tlie subject under consideration. It was 
not the rushing of tlie stream, swollen by violent rains, but the letting 
loose of the imitrisoned waters of the lake, wliich, long collected and con- 
fined, waited but the opportunity of outlet, to pour forth with more than 
the impetuosity of the mountain torrent. He Avas a forcible but not a 
frequent speaker. The strength of his convictions found expression in 
the boldness of his utterance. Disdaining the lighter graces of rhetoric, 
his speeches did not sparkle Avith wit nor glow with sentiment, but they 
bristled with facts ; if he did not ca]>tivate by his style, he compelled as- 
sent by his reasoning ; and Avhen he had arranged his facts and constructed 
his argun^ent. his conclusion folloAved with almost irresistible force. 

Devoting himself to commerce and to ])olitics, he attained eminent suc- 
cess in eacli, and secured the highest reAvards of 1)oth. To enumerate the 
l)Ositions which he filled and the honors that he received Avould be l)ut to 
repeat, in feebler phrase, Avhat has been so well said by the Senator who was 
his colleague. I think I shall do violence to the feelings of no man, and 
to the friends of no man who survives him in that State, so eminent for 
its distinguished sons, when I say that he was, by common acceptance, 
the first citizen of Michigan. The respect and affection in which he was 
held at home were manifested on the day of his burial. It Avas a fitting 
da,y for that sad office. Detroit was in mourning. From every public 
building floated the emblems of sorrow, and the doors and windows of 
numerous private houses were draped in sable. The streets Avere whitened 
by the early snoAv of Avinter, which fell with blinding fury upon the city. 
The sidewalks were thronged Avith thousands upon thousands of men and 
Avomen, who, unable to get near the house, stood exposed, for hours, to 
the inclement Aveather, Avaiting to see the long and melancholy proces- 
sion. 

To dwell at length upon his qualities as a partisan might offend the pro- 
prieties of the occasion, and I forbear. But even the slightest sketch of 
him would be imperfect Avithout some reference to his partisan character. 
He was a party man. He held that the division of the people into parties 
Avas essential to the balance of elective institutions. He, early selected 
for his sup]iort the party that AA'as, in his judgment, most comforma- 
ble to the sjiirit of the Constitution, to the rights and liberties of the peo- 
ple, and to the i)rosperity of the country ; and having deliberately made 
his choice, he adhered to it with all the tenacity of his nature. He be- 



14 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 

lieved in strong measures, and had no confidence in half -way methods and 
expedients. Wliatever was right and proper he held was to be promoted 
by all legal and proper means. 

He died as he Avould have preferred to die— suddenly, painlessly, and 
with his harness on. He fell as the warrior falls, on the eve of battle, 
with his sword in his hand and his shield upon liis arm. Death was kinder 
to him than it often is to the race of man, to all of whom " it is appointed 
once to die." No lingering disease wasted tliat stalwart form ; no pro- 
tracted suffering enfeebled that masculine intellect. The pale messenger, 
unheralded and unexpected, summoned him in tlie vigor of health and of 
active usefulness ; touched him with his wand, and he sank to eternal 
sleep — no, we believe he rose to eternal life. 

Mr. BAYARD. Mr. President, the relations I have held with the de- 
ceased Senator Chandler, have arisen only as a consequence of my ser- 
vice as a member of this body, and it has so happened that by the organi- 
zation of iHilitical parties we usually found ourselves in decided opposition 
to each other. 

Of his political opinions, actions, and methods, I will not, therefore, 
speak, for I could not do so approvingly, nor would it be worthy of myself 
or of him to attempt qualification or reconciliation of our decided opinions 
on policies or principles of government — in regard to which few men dif- 
fered so widely as he and I. 

Tt may be adopted as a wise rule in n,rriving at an estimate of men and 
their careers, to precede a formation of judgment of an antagonist, by the 
inquiry, " How would we have regarded the action of our adversary, had 
his energies been exerted in favor of the party and policies with which we 
ourselves have been allied V" 

May it not well be, that seen thus through a medium of sympathetic 
e7ids, the means of attainment, would have appeared somewhat less ob- 
jectionable. 

In the maze of action and passion of daily political life we are not apt 
to judge men justly, and may easily fail equally to appreciate the faults 
of an ally and the virtues of an opponent. 

But there were traits and qualities in Mr. Chandler tliat all men may 
dwell upon with admiration and respect, and which I have now a melan- 
choly satisfaction in attesting. 

He was manly, impulsive, outspoken, sincere, and generous — an open 
but not implacable foe, and a steady and courageous friend. 

His hand was open, for he was ''a cheerful giver. " He possessed a mind 
of superior force and sagacity, and his faculties for the administration of 
affairs were eminently practical and effective. 

In one important respect he supplied an example valuable in any govern- 
ment, and especially in one so popular in its forward nature as our own 
I refer to the fact that on no occasion was Mr. Chandler known to 
use his official position for his own pecuniary gain — directly or indirectly. 

His death has ended a long career of public service in executive and 
legislative capacities, and throughout his hands were ever clean of unjust 
or illegitimate gain, nor did his bitterest political foe (and no man evoked 
stronger personal criticism) ever charge, or even suspect him, with mak- 
ing personal profit out of his i)olitical station and opportunities. 

He was a man of vigorous, frank nature, and liis virtues and his faults 
were the natural outgrowth. Free-handed and open-hearted, he kept his 
word, despised a coward, and loathed a hypocrite. 

Standing now as it were above his newly made grave, I bear willing tes- 
timony to these personal virtues, and can recall many instances of his 
accommodating kindness and personal courtesy, which rendered the trans- 
action of business with him so easy and agreeable. 

For the rest, I feel that we are too near the years of his active political 
career to express positive judgment. 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 15 

To justly measure so ag'CTessive. vigorous and influential a character as 
his, it must he viewed at a little distance, as scul])tors often ask for the 
consideration of their strongest and most rugged works. 

Time will mellow, and reflection will soften the as])erities and animos- 
ities caused liy recent and heated conflict and which may ohscure some- 
what present judgment. 

Mr. President, the messenger of death came to our departed associate 
suddenly, and in the very midst of his most ardent aud strenuous 
pursuits. 

Here in this hall of ])ul)lic deliberation, once more are we confronted 
and startled by the foot-prints of the Pale Archer, whose shafts intended 
surely for each one of us remain as yet in the quiver unselected. Busied 
as we all are with the thoughts and cares of daily life, should we not pause 
to-day, and, thinking of the strong man who has V)een so suddenly called 
from our side, and from the home and wide circle of friends, to whom his 
warm heart and manly qualities so endeared him : — glance down the in- 
evitable pathway he has been called upon to tread, and so order our living 
that each may not fear to follow in his turn ? 

Mr. HAMLIN. The friendships formed in this body in long associa- 
tion are no inconsiderable compensation for the labors and annoyance in- 
cident to senatorial life. "While patience and forbearance are sometimes 
exhatisted in earnest, extensive, and at times angry debate, and many 
things are said and done in zeal which the calmer judgment will not ap- 
prove, yet the ties here formed and cemented will never be severed in life. 
As a riile these friendships, differing in degree, are far more general than 
is supposed. The cases are rare and exceptional where association here 
does not produce a cordial and sincere greeting as we mingle and meet 
along the i)atliway of life. And the acquaintance formed here with the 
deceased distinguished Senator, which ripened into permanent and undis- 
turbed friendship, justifies if it does not require that I should add a few 
words of i)ersonal tribute to his worth aud memory in the same spirit 
with which the friendly hand would place a garland of flowers upon his 
new-made grave. Some have spoken and others will speak more elabo- 
rately of his public life and valuable services. 

I first knew of Mr. Chandler as a distinguished merchant in the city 
of Detroit, where he had become eminent for his high commercial and 
financial integrity, and had established a business reputation which ex- 
tended far l)eyond the limits of his own State. In one of those financial 
tornadoes which at times have disturbed the business and industries of 
our country, when older and apparently more firmly estaljlished houses 
were wrecked by the blast, so well established was his reputation for un- 
questioned mercantile capacity and integrity that, when himself in doubt 
as to his aljility to withstand the crisis, on consultation with those with 
whom he had business relations, and acting under their united advice and 
assurances of support, he went forward triumphantly and successfully 
outriding the storm. An honorable merchant of known and unquestioned 
integrity, he was at all times entitled to receive and did receive the highest 
consideration. It is indeed a priceless legacy which he has left to his 
family, and he furnishes an example which should be imitated by all who 
care to be lionest. His sterling character in that regard is the brighter in 
times like these, when the crime of repudiation stalks at noon-day and 
finds unblushing advocates among States and corporations as well as 
among individuals. It is a truth that cannot be too often or earnestly 
expressed that an honest man is God's noblest work. 

I knew the Senator also as a distinguished leader in the Whig party in 
the days of its strengthand its triumi)h. He was once its honored leaders 
in a gubernatorial contest in his State. I also knew of him well as 
one of the prominent and leading men in the State of Michigan by whose 
counsels and under whose guidance the Republican party was formed, and 



16 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 



those who thought alike were induced to act togetlier •, a party in which 
he was at all times prominent, and to wliieh he adhered with unwavering 
fidelity to the close of his life •, and by Avhich he won that national confi- 
dence and respect to which he was so eminently entitled. 

But I became personally acquainted with Senator Chandler on that 
day when we were sworn in as members of this body, and at the time 
when he first took his seat in the Senate of the United States. 

In my judgment, the most prominent and distinguishing traits in the 
character of Senator Chandler were his sincere convictions of what 
he believed to be right, and his indomital:)le coiirage in expressing and 
maintaining those convictions regardless of consequences. He who pos- 
sesses those characteristics may always have enemies, but he will never 
be witlmut friends. I have myself but little respect for that man who 
has not enough of character to make an enemy, for he cannot be worthy 
to claim others as his friends. The frankness with which Senator 
Chandler expressed his o]iinions upon all occasions was not acceptable 
to many, and if he did not thereby incur their hostility he certainly failed 
to attach them to him as friends. But none were left in doubt as to the 
l)osition he would occupy upon any question in regard to which bis opin- 
ions were known. He was a man of convictions and courage ; never a 
man of policy and compromise ; nor did he believe in that timidity which 
in effect was treason to right and justice. 

That in his life for which he was perliaps held in the highest esteem by 
the loyal people of this country was the zeal and courage he displayed 
and the labor he performed in maintaining the sui>remacy of the Gov- 
ernment. Many there were who talked more ; few, if any, who labored 
as much and as effectively. With him it was always actions rather than 
words. He had then, as at all times, the boldness to characterize things 
and events by their right names, however distasteful it might be to 
others. I would award all honor to tlie brave men who by their heroic 
acts and imdaunted courage have been so instrumental in advancing the 
best interests of our common country in the field or on the ocean. I 
would pluck no leaf from the wreaths that so justly adorn their brows. 
I yield to none in the respect I would pay to them. But courage, cool, 
deliberate, unmistakable courage is as requisite and is as certainly dis- 
played in the deliberative councils of the nation as on the field of battle. 
The highest courage is that which always dares to do the right and fears 
only to do the wrong. The victories of jieace are more important than 
those of war, and to those who win them the highest homage is due. 

Not to the ensanguined field of death alone 

Is valor limited; she sits serene 

In the deliberative council, sagely scans 

The source of action, weighs, prevents, provides, 

And scorns to count her glories from the feats 

Of brutal force alone. 

Those of US who w^ere so long associated with the late Senator in this 
body will miss him exceedingly. In the wisdom of an inscrutable Prov- 
idence, his seat here has been made vacant. All tliat was mortal of him 
now reposes in the soil of his adopted State, which he had honored as the 
State had honored him. Those who knew him best will mourn him 
most, while the nation pays homage to his memory for public services so 
grandly performed. 

Mr. BLAINE. Mr. Chandler sprang from a strong race of men, 
reared in a State which has shed luster on other Commonwealths by the 
gift of her native-born and her native-bred. She gave Webster to Massa- 
chusetts, Chief -Justice Chase to Ohio, General I)ix to New York, and 
Horace Greeley to the head of American journalism. Mr. Chandler 
left New Hampshire before he attained his majority, and with limited 
pecuniary resources sought a home in the inviting territory of the North- 
west. He had great physical strength, with remarkable powers of endur- 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 17 



ance, possessed energy that covild not be overtaxed, was gifted with 
connive of a high order, was imbued with principles which throughout 
liis life were inflexible, was intelligent and well instructed, and in all 
resi)ects equipped for a career in the great and splendid region where he 
lived and grew and strengtliened and prospered and died. 

For a long ))eriod following the second war with Great Britain the 
Territory of Michigan M'as governed by one of the most persuasive and 
successful of American statesmen ; whose pure and honorable life, whose 
grace and kindness of manner, and whose almost unlimited power in 
wliat was tlien a remote frontier Territory, had enabled him to mold the 
vast majority of the early settlers to his own political views. When Mr. 
Chandi.kr reached Detroit General Cass had left the scene of his long 
reign — for reign it might well be called — to assume control of the War 
Dei)artment under one of the strongest administrations that ever gov- 
erned the country. The great majority of young men at twenty years of 
age naturally drifted with a current that wavS so strong ; but Mr. Chand- 
ler had inherited certain political principles whicli were strengthened 
by his own convictions as he grew to manhood, and he took his stand at 
once and firmly with the minority. He was from the outset a strong 
power in tlie political field ; though not until his maturer years, with 
fortune attained and the harder struggles of life crowned with victory, 
would he consent to hold any pulilic i)osition. But he was in all the 
fierce conflicts Miiich raged for twenty years in Michigan, and which 
ended in changing the political mastery of the State. It is not matter of 
wonder that personal estrangements occiuTed in such prolonged and 
bitter controversy, without indeed the loss of mutual respect, and in one 
of the most exciting periods of the struggle General Cass spoke publicly 
of not enjoying the honor of Mr. Chandler's acquaintance. It was just 
three years afterwards, as Mr. Chandler delighted to tell with good- 
natured and pardonable boasting, that he carried to General Cass a letter 
of introduction from the governor of Michigan which so impressed the 
General that he caused it to be publicly read in this Chamber and placed 
on the pei'manent files of the Senate. It is to the honor of both these 
great men that complete cordiality of friendship was restored, and that 
in the hour of supreme peril to the nation which came soon after. General 
Cass and Mr. Chandler stood side by side in maintaining the Union of 
tlie States by the exercise of the war power of the Government. They 
sleep their last sleep in the same beautiful cemetery near the city which 
was so long their home, under the soil of the State which each did so 
much to honor, and on the shores of the lake wliose commercial develop- 
ment, spanned by their lives, has been so greatly promoted by their 
efforts. 

The anti-slavery a,gitation which broke forth with such strength in 1854, 
following the repeal of the ISIissouri compromise, met with partial reac- 
tion soon after, and in 1856 Mr. Buchanan was cliosen to the Presidency. 
Mr. Chandler took his seat for the first time in this body on the day of 
Mr. Buchanan 'S inauguration. It was the first ])iTblic station he had ever 
held except the mayoralty of Detroit for a single term, and the first for 
which he had ever l)een a candidate, except wlien in 1852 he consented to 
lead tlie forlorn hojje of the Whigs in the contest for governor of Michi- 
gan. When he entered the Senate the Democratic party bore undisputed 
sway in this (;ha,mber, having more than two-thirds of the entire body. 
Tlie party was led l)y resohite, aggressive, able, uncompromising men, 
who played for a high stake and who ])layed the bold game of those who 
were willing to cast all u])on the hazard of the die. The party in opposi- 
tion, to which Mr. Chandler belonged, was weak in numbers but strong 
in character, intellect, and influence. Seward, with his philosophy of 
optimism, his deep study into the working of political forces, and his 
affluence of rhetoric, was its accepted leader. He was upheld and sus- 



muimammBiaa 



tained by Sumner, with his wealth of learning and his burning zeal for 
the right •, by Fessenden, less philosophic than Seward, less learned than 
Sumner, but more logical and skilled o' fence than either ; by Wade, who 
in metal and make-up was a Cromwellian, who, had he lived in the days 
of the Commonwealth, would have fearlessly followed the Protector in 
the expulsion of an illegal parliament, or drawn the sword of the Lord 
and (rideon to smite hip and thigh tlie Amalekites who appeared anew in 
the persons of the cavaliers ; by Collamer wise and learned, pure and dig- 
nified, a conscript father in look and in fact ; by John P. Hale, who never 
faltered in his devotion to the anti-slavery cause, and who had earlier than 
any of his associates broken his alliance with the old parties and given 
his eloquent voice to the cause of the despised Nazarenes ; by TrumljuU, 
acute, able, untiring, the first Kepublican Senator from that great State 
which has since added so much to the grandeur and glory of our history ; 
by Hamlin, with long training, with devoted fidelity, with undaunted 
courage, who came anew to the conflict of ideas vvith a State behind 
him, with its faith and its force, and who alone of all the illustrious Sen- 
ate of 1857 is with us to-day ; by Cameron, with wide and varied experi- 
ence in affairs, with consummate tact in the government of parties, whose 
active political life began in the days of Monroe and who. after a pro- 
longed and stormy career, still survives by reason of strength at four- 
score, with the strong attachment of his friends, the respect of his oppo- 
nents, the hearty good wishes of all. 

Into association with these men Mr. Chandler entered when in his 
forty-fourth year. His influence was felt, and felt powerfully, from the 
first day. A writer at the time said that the effect of Chandler's com- 
ing was like the addition of a fresh division of troops to an army engaged 
in a hand to hand conflict with an outnumbering foe. He encouraged, 
upheld, inspired, coerced others to do things which he could not do him- 
self, but which others could not have done without him. His first four 
years in the Senate were passed in a hopeless minority, where a sense of 
common danger had banished rivalry, checked jealousy, toned down ambi- 
tion, and produced that effective harmony and splendid discipline which 
won the most signal and far-reaching of all our political victories in the 
election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency. Changed by this tri- 
umph and the .startling events which followed into a majority party in 
the Senate, the Republicans found many of their oldest and ablest lead- 
ers trained only to the duties of the minority, and not fitted to assume 
with grace and efficiency the task of administrative leadership. They 
had been so long studying the science of attack that they were awkward 
when they felt the need and assumed the responsibility of defense. They 
were like some of the British regiments in the campaign of Namur, of 
whom William of Orange said there was no fortress of the French could 
resist them, and none that was safe in their hands. 

It was from this period that Mr. Chandler became more widely known 
to the whole country — achieving almost at a single bound what we terra a 
national reputation. His defiant attitude in the presence of the impend- 
ing and overwhelming danger of war ; his superb courage under all the 
doubts and reverses of that terrible struggle between brethren of the 
same blood ; his readiness to do all things, to dare all things, to endure all 
things for the sake of victory to the Union ; his ardent support of Mr. 
Lincoln's administration in every war measure which they proposed ; his 
quickness to take issue with the Administration when he thought a great 
campaign was about to be ruined by what was termed the Fabian 
policy ; his inspiring presence, his burning zeal, his sleepless vigilance, 
his broad sympathies, his prompt decision, his eager patriotism, his crown- 
ing faith in the final result, all combined to give Mr. Chandler a front rank 
among those honorable and devoted men who in our war history are entitled 
to stand next to those who led the mighty conflict on the field of battle. 



To portray Mr. Chandler's career for the ten consecutive years after 
the war closed would involve too close a reference to exciting questions 
still in some sense at issue. But in that long period of service and in the 
shorter one that immediately preceded his death, those who knew him 
well could observe a constant intellectual growth. lie was fuller and 
stronger and abler in conference and in debate the last year of his life 
than ever before. He entered the Senate originally without any practice 
in parliamentary discussion. He left it one of the most forcible and 
most fearless antagonists that could be encountered in this Chamber. 
His methods were learned here. He was plain and yet eloquent ; aggress- 
ive and yet careful ; fearless without showing bravado. What he knew, 
he knew with precision ; the powers he possessed were always at his com- 
mand and he never declined a challenge to the lists. "Here and now " 
was Ills motto, and his entire senatorial career and of his life indeed out- 
side seemed guided by that spirit of bravery which the greatest of Amer- 
ican Senators exhibited, in the only boast he ever made, when he quoted 
to Mr. Calhoun the classic defiance : 

Concurritnr ; hora<» 
Momento cita mors venit, aut victoria laeta. 

Mr. Chandler's fame was enlarged by his successful administration 
of an important Cabinet position. Called by President Grant to the head 
of the Interior Department by telegraphic summons, he accepted without 
reluctance and without distrust. His eighteen years of positive and un- 
compromising course in the Senate had borne the inevitable fruit of many 
enmities as well as the rich reward of countless friends. The appoint- 
ment was severely criticised and unsparingly condemned by many who, 
a year later, were siifliciently just and magnanimous to withdraw their 
harsh words and bear generous testimony to his executive ability, his 
painstaking industry, and his inflexible integrity ; to his admirable talent 
for thorough organization and to his prompt and gi'acef ul dispatch of pub- 
lic business. What his friends had before known of his character and his 
capacity the chance of a few brief months in an administrative position 
had revealed to the entire country and had placed in history. 

It would not be just even in the generous indulgence conceded to eulogy 
to speak of Mr. Chandler as a man without faults. But assuredly no 
enemy, if there be one above his lifeless form, will ever say that he had 
mean faults. They were all on the generous and larger side of his nature. 
In amassing his princely fortune he never exacted the pound of flesh ; he 
never ground the faces of the poor ; he was never even harsh to an honest 
debtor unable to pay. His wealth came to him through his own great 
ability, devoted with unremitting industry for a third of a century to 
honorable trade in that enlarging, ever-expanding region, whose capacities 
and resources he was among the earliest to foresee and to appreciate. 

To his friends Mr. Chandler was devotedly true. Like Colonel Ben- 
ton, he did not use the word " friend " lightly and without meaning. 
Nor did he ever pretend to be friendly to a man whom he did not like. 
He never dissembled. To describe him in the plain and vigorous Saxon 
which he spoke himself — he was a true friend, a hard hitter, an honest 
hater. 

»**'tln that inner circle of home life, sacred almost from reference, Mr. 
Chandler was chivalric in devotion, inexhaustible in affection, and ex- 
ceptionally happy in all his relations. Whatever of sternness there was 
in his character, whatever of roughness in his demeanor, whatever of 
irritability in his temper, were one and all laid aside when he sat at his 
own hearthstone, or dispensed graceful and generous hospitality to un- 
numbered guests. There he was seen at his best, and there his friends 
best love to recall him. As Burke said of Lord Keppel. he was a wild 
stock of pride on which the tenderest of hearts had grafted the milder 
virtues. 



20 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 




A saf^e whose words have comforted many generations of men tells ns 
that when death comes every one can see Its deplorable and grievous side 
— only the wise can see canses for reconcilement. Let ns be wise to-day 
and celebrate the memory of a man who stood on the confines of age with- 
out once feeling its weakness or realizing its decay ; who passed sixty-six 
years in this world without losing a single day of mental activity or physi- 
cal strength; who had a business career of great length and unbroken 
prosperity ; who had attained in public life a fourth election to the Senate 
of the United States, an honor enjoyed by fewer men in the Republic than 
even its Chief Rulership, and who strengthening with his years stood 
higher in the regard of his countrymen, stronger with his constituency, 
nearer to his friends, and dearer to his kindred, at the close of his career 
than on any preceding day of his eventful life. 

Mr. LOGAN. Mr. President, Illinois by the side of her sister State 
(Michigan) mourns with her the loss of her honored son. No language 
of mine will be sufficiently eloquent to portray in fitting terms the loss 
we all feel in the death of so noble and patriotic a man as was our brother 
Senator. 

Twenty years ago, sir, in this city I made his acquaintance. We then 
differed in our political theories, but, sir, there was an indescribable some- 
thing that attracted me and caused me to like the man. During the great 
rebellion against this (xovernment we became better acquainted and bet- 
ter friends, and from that time up to his death nothing had ever marred 
our kindly relations. I learned to admire him more and more as I kneM' 
him better. No man could know him well without having great respect 
and admiration for him. 

To describe him merely as an ordinary man would be to do his record 
and memory a great injustice. To say that he was a very great man, in 
the sense in which that term is generally understood, might be considered 
fulsome praise ; but, sir, if gi-eatness consists in the accom]>lishraent of 
honest purpose, he was truly great. The sixty-six years that have passed 
over his head were to him replete with honor and prosperity. On what- 
ever line he moved he achieved a triumph. Physically, he was a model 
of stalwart mold ; his mental structure was strong and vigorous ; in en- 
ergy he was not a laggard in anything in which he engaged. He was a 
thinker, however crude he may have been in speech. He was bold in his 
expressions and manly in his utterances ; his powers of organization and 
combination were unsurpassed. Those who may have found themselves 
in opposition to him on any line, political or otherwise, can well attest 
this fact. 

He was not only a man of thought, but of action ; he was generous, 
kind, true, and faithful ; his bosom welled up and overflowed with the 
milk of human kindness ; his heart was large enough to embrace witliin 
its sympathies all classes ; his watchword ever was liberty and protection 
to all. He was a patriot in the broadest sense in which tlie term is un- 
derstood. During his country's severest trials his services in lier l:)elia.lf 
in giving aid and encouragement to the people of his own St!l.te and in 
the councils of the nation by his bold and fearless course were great. 
When the storm of secession was fiercest he was boldest ; as trials came 
he rose with the emergency ; in the darkest night he was one of the most 
steadfast stars. Sir, he was by nature a leader and controller of men, 
possessing all the necessary qualities that would have fitted him for a great 
field-marshal, the energy, the boldness, the judgment, the decision, the 
courage, with the capacity for action and council. He was the builder of 
his own fortunes, and the molder of his own sentiments, a man. sir, true 
and steadfast to his friends, and one who never asked or begged quarter 
from an enemy. Yet he was just at all times to friend and foe. His 
frankness and freedom of expression at times gave offense, when by a 
different course he might have made his pathway smoother, but lie chose 



to be candid and honest. By this manly course (as is frequently the case) 
he became the subject of much criticism and vituperation from a class of 
people that constantly revel in calumny. But, sir, he moved on in his 
upright course, as Ijecame a man of worth, so that before his death he 
had passed through the mist and clouds of detraction and stood out from 
among and above tliem in the full brightness of a glorious vindication. 

Tlie evil, that men do, lives after theiu ; 
Tlie {jooiJ is oft interred with their bones. 

lint, sir. in tlie case of the deceased Senator his good deeds were so 
vividly marked that they will live after him in imperishable glory, while 
the mistakes he may have made (those construed into evil) were of such 
insignificance tliat they will soon be lost in the great ocean of forgetf ul- 
iiess. 

But, sir. in paying this tribute to his memory, I do not choose to speak 
of his different official acts. I prefer to leave that duty to others, and to 
let the historv of his country speak of these, along with the ages as they 
pass. His official record, as a whole, is a grand one, and requires no bar- 
ren eulogy at my hands. 

^Ir. President, on the last day of his life, in company with one other 
gentleman, I came with Iiim from Janesville, Wisconsin, to Chicago. He 
was apparently in excellent health. On the way once he complained of 
slight indigestion. At al)out twelve o'clock I left him at tiie Grand Pa- 
cific Hotel. About five o'clock that afternoon I called at his room, and 
found him then in exceedingly good spirits and looking in fine condition. 
At 7.:^0 he went to McCormick's Hall. There I sat by his side on the 
stage. At about eight o'clock he was introduced by the president of the 
Young Men's Auxiliary Club [Mr. Collier] to a grand audience composed 
of ladies and gentlemen. 

He commenced slowly, but warmed up with his subject until he be- 
came so eloquent and forcible in his language and illustrations that the 
audience, in the midst of his speech, arose with one accord and gave 
three clieers. No orator during an address in the city of Chicago ever 
received more marked attention or greater applause. He created an 
enthusiasm that carried all along with it like the rushing force of a 
mighty storm. Tiiis, sir, was the grandest triumph of his life, and he 
felt it to be so. 

He stood forth before that grand audience like a giant, and with full- 
volumed voice spoke like a Webster or a Douglas. His words were well 
chosen ; his sentences terse and complete, abounding in wit, humor, and 
happy local hits ; his logic came like hot shot in the din of battle, crash- 
ing through the oaks of the forest. One of his last sentences still rings 
in my ears, '' Shut up your stores, shut up your manufactories, and go to 
work for your country. ' ' The effect of this last speech of Senator Chand- 
ler was electrical ; its influence is still felt among the business men of 
Chicago. The meeting adjourned with great demonstrations in favor of 
the speaker. He left tlie hall and went directly to his room and soon re- 
tired to rest. 

The next morning I was sitting with my family at breakfast, in the 
Palmer House ; a gentleman came into the dining-room in great haste 
and spoke to me, saying, '^ Logan, your friend is dead— found in his room 
dead." 

Sir, I arose and bowed my head ; my heart was tilled with grief and sor- 
row. I repaired at once to the room occupied by the Senator in the Grand 
Pacific Hotel, and there, sir, he lay, in the cold and icy embrace of death. 

Yes, sir, dead! He is gone from us. We will hear him no more ; his 
voice is hushed in silence forever. In his room, no one being present with 
him, in the lonely and solemn gloom of the night, he had passed from lift 
unto death, and in such a peaceful manner that the angel of death muse 



22 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER, 

have whispered the message so softly and gently that he knew not his com- 
ing. But, sir, what a shock it was to the living. As the fall of the stalwart 
oak causes a trembling in the surrounding forest, so did the fall of Senator 
Chandler cause the tender chords of the hearts of this people to vibrate 
with the tender touch of sympathy everywhere. 

Sir, the day after his death we took his remains from this lonely cham- 
ber to his home in Detroit, and there, in the midst of his grief-stricken 
family, gently laid them down. A deep, mournful silence hung heavily 
over the old family mansion. 

One unbroken gloom seemed to rest on the clustered trees, where the 
feathered songsters in spring-time had cheered the liappy family with 
notes of sweetest music. The wintry chill from the snow-blasts without 
was but a faint type of the deep sadness which hung like a pall over every 
heart. Even the sighing wind that swept around in its saddened wail 
seemed to chant a requiem for the departed Senator. Well might his 
friends weep at their own as well as their country's loss. Indeed, he was 
a man of whom all may speak in praise, and upon whose bier all may drop 
the tear of sorrow. When earth received him she took to her bosom one 
of her manly sons, and when paradise bade his spirit come a noble one 
entered there. 

Mr. President, time brings lessons that teach us that hope does not 
perish when the stars of life refuse longer to give light. 

The death of our brother Senator and those still closely following him, 
should constantly warn us of the fact, that we are traveling to " the un- 
discovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns." 'Tis true 
the grave in its silence gives forth no voice, nor whispers of the morrow, 
but there is a voice borne upon the lips of the morning zephyrs, that lets 
fall a whisper, quickening the heart with a knowledge that there is an 
abode beyond tlie tomb. Sir, our lamps are burning now, some more 
brightly than others ; some shed their light from the mountain 's top, 
others from the lowly vales ; but let us so trim them that they may all 
burn with equal brilliancy when relighted in our mansions beyond the 
mysterious river. 

I fondly hope, sir, that there we will again meet our departed friend. 

Mr. MORRILL. Mr. President, the manly features which stood forth 
in,the character of our deceased associate, like those of his commanding 
person, were so round and full, so distinctly pronounced, that they could 
not fail to give the same impression to all observers, and hence our tributes 
to-day may wear the aspect of photographs of the same figure, with merely 
variations of posture. After the eloquent full-length representations 
already supplied, I shall only briefly point out what I have learned to con- 
sider as among the distinctive characteristics of that life and form which 
lately gave such robust assurance of length of days, but which, to our 
sorrow, has been swiftly summoned, as we all soon must be, to that world 
of light and hope where the weary are at rest. 

M;=The late Senator Chandler, as all may know, was born in the south- 
eastern border of N^ew Hampshire, a region which has been wondrously 
fruitful of distinguished statesmen whose fortune it was to be sent here 
and long retained as Senators from other and more populous States. 
Among these eminent men were Webster and Wilson from Massachusetts, 
Dix from New York, Chase from Ohio, Grimes from Iowa, and Cass from 
Michigan, who was superseded by liim whose decease we now lament. 
These men, going where they would, were sure to leave their " foot-prints 
on the sands of time," and were never less than the peers of the foremost 
men in this body, of which Mr. Chandler was so recently a conspicuous 
member, dear to us and to his own people. 

fe^As one of the pioneers of Michigan, his ambition was, through sterling 
integrity and unflinching resolution, to grasp business on a comprehen- 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 



23 



sive scale, and he, with others, made Detroit, from a small town, a com- 
mercial metropolis thoroughly equipped to meet the wants of trade in a 
great and rapidly growing State. From the start he never underrated the 
magnificence of western prairies or western forests, nor their present or 
prospective power, and there he found a congenial home. 

Upon his first entrance into this Chamber he brought with him the 
same invincible energy that had crowned a successful mercantile career. 
Having led a busy life, witli daily opportunities, through extensive ob- 
servation, to acquire knowledge, he was already a man of affairs, whose 
ripened judgment commanded respect, and, among measures he was not 
slow to fix upon the possible best rather than the doubtful, or, among 
men, to select the competent rather than the incompetent. When he 
would lead, he boldly marched in front, nor sought to elude the fire of ad- 
versaries. Wasting no time in the consideration of the rubbish born of 
ill-starred experiments, magic-lantern illusions, or incomprehensible 
theories, he aimed with fearless self-reliance at once to reach sure-footed, 
solid-sense conclusions, shirking neither work nor danger, and bringing 
both the strength and courage which he so often found to triumph over 
all difficulties. 

For many years in the Senate he was chairman of the Committee on 
Commerce— no other so long— and conducted its business with unflagging 
fidelity and praiseworthy economy. An instance of the latter occurred 
when a bill, reported by him for river and harbor improvements, had been 
overloaded here with many prodigal additions, and, rather than to bear 
the responsibility of an overgrown expenditure, he helped to kill the orig- 
inal offspring of his own committee, by a vote to table the bill. That 
year no appropriation was made for such objects, and, if there was any 
log-rolling greed, it received a check. 

Mr. Chandler was intensely loyal to the Republic — not to a sham, nor 
to " such stuff as dreams are made of " — but to a sovereignty under or- 
ganic law, able and ready to give back to its citizens something in return 
for all services demanded. He would have been ashamed of a weak, 
spineless, and rickety republic, or one on any Spanish American pattern, 
having no iron in its blood, and ready to break down at the first hostile 
'pronunciamento ; but he was proud of that which stands foi'th great 
both in peace and war, and Ijy its regard for law and order, by its devo- 
tion to human rights, by its adherence to every pledge of public faith, by 
its matchless march of freedom and its progressive spirit, has also shown 
itself worthy to rule and protect, with an imperishable vitality, the 
American continent. 

The attitude of foreign nations during the late rebellion could not fail 
to be watched by our people, as it was by Senator Chandler, with con- 
stant solicitude, not— whatever the attitude might have been— as throw- 
ing any doubt upon the final triumph of the Union arms, but as a con- 
tingency which at times threatened to i)rolong a bloody contest and mul- 
tiply its griefs. Our Republic, it is not to be concealed, had few liearty 
friends among the monarchs and oligarchs of Europe, but we now know 
that the Queen of Great Britain, in spite of the sinister advice of Xapo- 
leon the V illain, was wiser and less unfriendly than any of her colonies, 
or than some of her ministers, who vainly hoped to gain untold advan- 
tages by breaking up the American Government into smaller and possiltly 
less formidable jjroportions. Senator Chandler, however, never lack- 
ing audacity to defend the national life at all hazards, was one of those 
who did not believe tlie United States were any too large, and he had an 
abiding faith that its power would always be growing kirger. His home 
confronted the western gateway to a large, but not invulnerable, British 
province, and he was wont to be impatient — genial as was his natural 
temperament— that the government of a great and kindred people, bound 
to us also by paramount commcxcial interests, should in such a crisis 



take a hostile or even a doubtful position, which he thought would have 
been most carefully if not fraternally avoided, provided our forces by 
land and sea had not been supposed to be fully employed against those 
to whom " belligerent rights " had been wrongly conceded. Senator 
Chandler's repeated denunciations of the primarily responsible party 
to the piratical raids of the Alabama and Shenandoah were loud and un- 
stinted, and he insisted that, for these and other national wrongs, we 
held a valid lien upon the Canadas to be enforced at our will and pleas- 
ure. He gave utterance in the white heat of the strife to some rather 
angry philippics, but the gentle sway of the Queen saved our people from 
any attempt to show, as no doubt many were eager to show, that thei*e 
was method in the Senator's madness. As chairman of the Committee 
on Commerce, he could not look with composure upon the capture of 
American ships, nor upon their forced transfer to escape capture, and he 
resented the foul blow by which the ancient mistress of the ocean ap- 
peared to profit. 

If, then, he showed some bitterness to foreigners whose sympathies 
were openly against us during the war, we may not wonder at. and should 
pardon, his profounder indignation that any one of liis own countrymen, 
without provocation, should have been so dead to patriotism as to be 
willing that the nation should perish, or to forget that 

'I'his is my own, my native huid. 

For a violent and bloody rebellion, against a Government wholly free and 
popular, any tolerance seemed to him too much and any chastisement too 
little. But it was the rectification of national authority he sought — not 
personal vengeance. 

In 1875, soon after a protracted service of eighteen years in the United 
States Senate, covering great epochs and crises in our history, he was ap- 
pointed, by President Grant, Secretary of the Department of the Inter- 
ior — a Department of the Government Avhich, perhaps, through its mul- 
tifarious branches, is more than any other directly seen and felt by the 
people. The Patent, Pension, Land, and Indian Bureaus — to say noth- 
ing of the educational and census dependencies— each and all require the 
perpetual and vigilant supervision of the Secretary, and it may be said 
that no other Department is more exposed to public criticism or to pri- 
vate suspicion ; but when Mr. Chandler entered this new and untried 
field of duties, he at the outset exhibited his mastery by organizing every 
branch of the service upon ''business principles," and thus its vast 
machinery, reaching to our remotest boundaries, moved without noise 
and without friction. The confidence of the i>eople, in the integrity and 
efliciency of the Department of the Interior, became complete, and, when 
the Secretary left the ofiice, he had, as an executive officer, largely ad- 
vanced a reputation already national. 

At our last session he reappeared here, returned for the fourth time, in 
his senatorial character, but alas ! only to remain long enough to show to 
him the unending attachment of his people — ^to us the brittleness of 
human life. 

Along with a stalwart frame, he carried a stalwart will, and was blessed 
with that outspoken decision of character which leans not to the right 
nor left to obtain support. Physically and mentally he was muscular, 
and, if he could have been vain of anything, as he was not, it might have 
been as an athlete. He never complained of overwork, whether that work 
was official, or on the stump, on the ''conduct of the war," or on the con- 
duct of his model farm, which for some years had most engaged liis 
affections and fully justified his pride. ISfot unmindful of the rank won 
and worn as a merchant, nor of the honor he kept bright as a Senator, he 
yet at heart and at home preferred to be known as a great farmer, and as 
such, with all the rest added, he will be known and long remembered by 
the people of the State he loved so well. 



Senator CnANDLKR w;is ;i ]>artisiin. never a neutral, Init a Tfepnljlican 
of the straitest sect. By no free-trade tariff would he build up foreign 
trade on a degraded people, nor l)uild uj) a gamhlinghome trade on money 
intrinsically unsound. Tie was a staunch friend of internal improve- 
ments, and on such ([uestions as the equality of man before the law, land 
for the landless, schools for the illiterate, he might almost be styled a, 
Hebrew of the Hebrews. He believed in Republican men and measures, 
and so believed because to him tliey were nothiiigless than the custodians 
and sure i)romises of the honor and prosperity of the country. His opin- 
ions, based uj)on full and life-long convictions, were stoutly held, and did 
not el)b and flow with every change of the moon. He was not a frequent 
si)eaker in the Senate, and his wit never got blunted by having too fine a 
point, but when he did si>eak. having something to say, his words were so 
hearty and straightforward tliat neither friend nor foe could deny their 
ringing force or misinterpret their meaning. 

Never claiming the glittering refinements or elocpience of the schools, 
nor trying to escape oblivion by rhetoric, yet his aid as a campaign speaker 
was widely sought, and the remarkable speecli, delivered by him on the 
evening destined to be his last ui)on earth, may l)e cited as an example 
of his vigor, pungency, and effectiveness as a political orator. 

And thus we bid adieu to a strong man, to a true and loyal spirit, to him 
whose impassioned devotion to liis whole country was only comparable 
to the tender love he bore in all his relalations as a son, husband, and 
father. 

Mr. BLAIR. Mr. President, the man whose ob ('([uies are now being 
celebrated in the august halls of tlie Capitol was one of the extraordinary 
characters of American history. 

His career from the hearthstone to the tomb was one of singular indi- 
viduality and power. It was one constant and successful struggle between 
great native forces marslialledlty an heroic and aggressive soul, and every 
form of opposition to his personal advancement and to the puri)oses of a 
patriotic ])ublic life, yet he never encountered an obstacle which he did 
not destroy. He was over all mortal combatants conqueror, until on the 
very summit of victory, at the close of a stern and incessant warfare pro- 
longed for nearly seventy years, with liis eye still burning like the eagle's, 
and his arm still raised in mighty action. Death killed liim as with a 
feather, and the commanding form was forever still ; the strong intellect, 
the storm-compelling will, and imperial soul vanished from subluiuiry 
affairs. There was not even a. premonitory suggestion, the tinkling of a 
servant's bell, not one lifte^ fiiiger of friendship, not one parting tear of 
love. 

When shall the promise of inspiration be fulfilled ? When shall Death, 
the last enemy, be himself destroyed ? In this presence God alone is 
great. 

Zachariah Chandler was a son of New Hampshire, and the State 
which even in these latter days has given to the country some of the 
greatest men of modern or of any times — among them Cass, and Hale, 
and Wilson, and Chase, and the colossal genius of Webster— is proud to 
add his name to the long list of her heroes, philanthropists, and states- 
men. Born and nurtured among the grand and beautiful scenes of moun- 
tain, valley, lake, and stream which have given to New Hampshire the 
name of the Switzerland of America, Mr Ch.\ndler felt from cliildhood 
that his future lay in the vast possibilities of the West ; that there alone 
was room for the energy and enterprise of his unfolding powers, and that 
he must consecrate his strong arm and his sagacious, indomital)le, and 
freedom-loving soid, to the development of the great central region of the 
iieimblic. At the age of nineteen years he departed from Uedford, near 
^Manchester, the home of his youth, where still abound affectionate mem- 
ories of his marked qualities indicative of the coming man, and planted 



himself on the shores of the great lake which constitutes the focus of our 
inland commerce, and which has given its name to one of the happiest 
and most powerful of American Commonwealths. There during forty- 
six years, comprising the most remarkable i)eriod of our domestic devel- 
opment and, I think, of our national history, Z achaiuah Chandler, more 
than any other of her citizens, was the State of Michigan ; and during the 
last twenty-five years, with but few exceptions, as much as any other one 
man, he has shaped the destinies of the United States. 

While for one-fourth of a century he was a conspicuous figure in pub- 
lic affairs, I do not deny that others may Iiave filled a larger space in the 
gazettes, and a few — a very few — may have been more important factors 
in the course of events. Yet I know not of ten men in his generation 
who, in my belief, have furnished so much of courage and fidelity ; of 
will-power and aggressiveness, tempered by discretion and common sense; 
of staunch and granitic consecration to conviction ; of deep, unvarying 
purpose, wliich defied calamity and laughed at vicissitude ; of staying and 
recuperating power in adversity as well as of tremendous energy in the 
hour of decisive action, as the man to whose memory this brief hour is 
given. 

Mr. Chandler was sometimes considered harsh in his feelings toward 
political opponents, and notably toward a section of our common country 
whose people were specially identified with political principles which he 
rejected, and an institution which it was one of the great purposes of his 
life to destroy. But never beat gentler heart in the breast of woman. 
His blood coursed in molten tides of hate toward every appearance of 
wrong, and of love for every portion of his country and for all mankind. 
His giant form and rugged outlines were the home of one of the most 
magnanimous natures I ever knew. His eyes were full of tears for every 
form of distress ; his hand was full of relief. His life is^ record of un- 
obtrusive and unselfish good deeds. 

He was a radical, but a radical is the only true conservative. He had 
plowed deep, and he knew the fundamental principles of things. He 
knew that princii)les never temporize, no matter what those may do who 
profess them ; that they are exacting and inexorable, and utterly regardless 
of the state of the vote or the count, whether fair or false ; that they can- 
not be Avaived or violated or suppressed or conciliated. He knew, and 
what he knew he felt, that principles will always have their day in court, 
and that against us or our children Clod will give them judgment and ex- 
ecution and satisfaction thereof to the uttermost farthing for their every 
violation. He had seen death and destruction, the fell officers of eternal 
justice, abroad in the land levying upon tlie very life of our own genera- 
tion the tremendous damages which three centuries of outraged human- 
ity had recovered against this nation, and he knew that, unless the pres- 
ent and future should conform absolutely to the eternal principles of 
right and do impartial justice to the feeblest human being within our 
borders, tears and woe and death will pay for it to the last fraction of our 
treasure and the last drop of our blood. Therefore was he stalwart ; 
therefore did he grieve over the vanities of conciliation when he thought 
that principles elementary and sacred were sacrificed in the vain hope 
that peace would come from their violation ; that (rod would be mocked 
out of his intelligence and purposes, and permit the tiniest cliild to be 
robbed of the smallest right with impunity. He felt that tlie nation and 
the statesmen who temporize and tamper with principles are playing with 
the hottest fire of Heaven's wrath, and that there is no true conserva- 
tism which does not consist in tlie most radical application of immutable 
justice to every race and individual among men. 

Mr. Chandler was only radical against what he understood to be 
wrong. He distinguished between the wrong and the wrong-doer. While 
he hated the former he would rescue tlie latter, wlio is as often a victim 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 27 

as an aggressor. His war was upon systems and policies, not upon indi- 
viduals and communities. 

He was as anxious for the prosperity and happiness and as jealous of the 
renown of tlie South as of the Xoiili. He was great and broad, and 
would have been beloved by Washington and Madison and .Jefferson and 
by the whole family of patriots Avho worshipped the principles of the 
great Declaration which tliey promulgated, and who " trembled for their 
country when they remembered that God is just." 

It may be said of him that he was a strong partisan. This is only to 
praise him. Tlie man who is not a partisan is witliout convictions, or if 
he has convictions he is false to them. That he was a bigot I deny. He 
was simply and sublimely true. He knew not how to i)revaricate or 
ai)ostatize or '' Iceep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to the 
hope." In disaster and exigency, amid defection and demoraliz;ition he 
became the front because he was always in the advance, and, wherever 
others might go, he never fell back. Nol)ody and no thing dismayed him. 
He was like a living rock on the eternal battle line between right and 
wrong. There he stood ''fixed like a tower," for support in onset, for 
shelter and for rally in repidse and despair. 

He was not more ultra than others, l)ut he was more steadfast and 
courageously true to his cause. He only went with them to the full 
length of tlieir common belief and professions— but there lie staid. His 
action was not that of mercury in long-tuljed thermometers, rising and 
falling with the weather of expediency, but he found the line where he 
belonged, and he fought it out there — not only if it took all summer, but 
all winter and all time. 

And so it was that he expired in the hour of his greatest usefulness, 
while he was once more rallying the host and tlie most vital political 
truths, as he understood them and as the fatliers of the Ilepublic under- 
stood them, were echoing from his lips on the midnight air of the Queen 
City by the lakes. And still 

Their echoes roll from soul to soul 
And grow forever and forever. 

His career is a rare illustration of the excellence of our institutions. 
It is full of hope to every struggling, brave-hearted youth who feels con- 
scious of noble purpose and inherent power. 

Zachariah Chandler was a patriot, a statesman, and an honest man. 
He was of God's noblest work. In such case 

'Tis not so difficult to die. 

Mr. CAMEHON, of Pennsylvania. Mr. President, I desire to add my 
tribute to one who for a much longer time than the majority of Senators 
was a member of this body. Zachariah Chandler was four times 
chosen by his adopted State to represent her in the Senate. Few have 
been honored so frequently. This alone would be sutticient so say of him 
in pronouncing his eulogy, for no man need desire higher praise than to 
have said of him that he spent one-third of his entire life in faithful pul)- 
lic service. That such service was rendered by Mr. Chandler we all 
know. That he was appreciated by his peojile, none can deny who wit- 
nessed the evidences of sadness that were portrayed upon the counte- 
nances of thousands of his constituents as the last sad rites were being 
paid to his memory. In all that has been said here of his patriotism, 
nothing has been uttered that ought not to have been, for nothing more 
can be said of him than he deserved. Michigan has lost a brave, faithful, 
honest representative, and her people may well mourn. 

I did not expect to do so, nor can I add one word to that which has been 
spoken that would be worthy of him. I merely desired to place my 
words, crude and simple as they are, alongside of those more worthy 



and appropriate addresses which have been placed upon the records 
of the Senate in memory of one with whom I served both in the Cabinet 
and in the Senate, and who in all the relations of life, both public and 
private, was my friend. 

Mr. BALDWIN". Mr. President, it is with feelings of painful sensi- 
bility tliat I add my tribute to wliat has already been offered, and 
these are deeply intensified when I recall the unbroken friendship which 
for more than forty years existed between the late Senator Chandler 
and myself. 

Born and reared amid the hills of a ISTew England State that has given 
to the country many distinguished statesmen, his cliaracter largely par- 
took of tlie spot of liis nativity. 

His educational advantages were confined to the studies of the com- 
mon school and the country academy of those days. The wise and effi- 
cient use he made of them is abundantly demonstrated in the honorable 
record of his life. 

While yet a youth, stimulated by a laudable ambition, he sought a 
wider, a more promising sphere than the circumscribed boundaries of his 
home afforded. The expanding West, with its great possibilities, beck- 
oned him to its inviting fields. Bidding adieu to the home of his child- 
hood he removed to Detroit, then Ijut little more than a military post on 
the frontier of civilized life. Before attaining his majority he estab- 
lislied a mercantile business, carrying into his daily life those habits 
of industry and frugality which he had beeu taught and which were illus- 
trated in all his subsequent career. 

He had started in life with the unwavering determination to make no 
compromise of principle. In this he was as firm as the granite hills of 
his native State. Success was his motto ; but it must be attained 
through industry and integrity alone. From this purpose he never 
swerved, and during a business life of many years, marked by the vicissi- 
tudes which are inseparable from commercial pursuits, his reputation 
was spotless. 

Under the principles which Mr. Chandler brought to his daily avoca- 
tions he reaped liis reward, not alone in abundant wealth, but in the well- 
earned confidence which the people of Michigan placed in liis high capa- 
bility and character. 

Coupled with an earnest devotion to the demands of a business steadily 
enlarging, he took a deep interest in the political and other questions of 
the day. From liis boyhood he had displayed that quickness of compre- 
hension and sterling common sense, that intuitive knowledge of men and 
things, which were of so great service to him in those after years when, 
called from the pursuits of a mercantile life, lie was invested with duties 
and responsibilities grave and national in their character. 

At an early day, and at a time when the political party with which he 
was identified was in a majority, he had been chosen mayor of De- 
troit. In this his first official position he displayed executive abilities 
and tliose qualifications needful in the exalted stations he afterward so 
ably filled. 

Nominated in 1852 as the candidate of the Whig i)arty for governor, he 
made his first appearance as a i»olitical speaker in a vigorous canvass of 
the State, but failed of an election. 

An anti-slavery Whig from principle, opposed to oppression in every 
f(n'm, he took a prominent and etlicient part in the organization of the 
Republican party in 18-54, devoting the best energies of liis after life in 
promoting its success. 

In 1857 he was chosen by the Legislature to represent Michigan in this 
body. His immediate i)redecessor was that distinguished Senator, Cabinet 
minister, diplomat, and scholar. General Lewis Cass. Called as Mr. 
Chandler was from an active commercial life without previous train- 



HmHIII I M I IWI I HW I i | |l | i|lllllll|i IP i I I I IHHIIi tf milMH II III IIil lllllH I M I I i y i HIIII 



ZACIIARTAH CHANDLER. 29 

inar, to take the ))lacc of this eminent man. whose lone: life had Iteen spent 
in the jnihlic service, there were those who donhted his success, hut those 
douhts were speedily disi)eUe(l. In the Senate (Jliamber, as in every sta- 
tion lie was called u])on to fill, he never failed to i)rove himself equal to 
the duties which devolved npou him. 

It is not needful for me to speak particularly of his career in the Senate, 
of the consi)icuous i)Osition he occupied, and the influence he exerted in 
this hody. That has already been done by his associates who so well knew 
and apiu'eciated the excellence of his jndK'ment and tlie earnestness with 
which his duties were discharged. But I may say that the eighteen years 
of his continuous service wa,s tlie most eventful period in the history of 
the countiy. The stability of tlie Constitution and the very existence of 
the (government were jmt to their severest test. An irreju'essible conflict 
existed in the national Legislature and throughout the land ; the sover- 
eignty of the Union was threatened. During the dark years of civil war 
which followed, the unceasing earnestness with which all his jiowers were 
devoted to sustain the administration in its efforts for the ])reservation 
of the llepulilic are too well known, too deeply engraved in the hearts of 
the i)eo])le, to need more tlian a passing notice. In all these hours of 
gloom and sorrow, in all the vicissitudes of victory and defeat, in all the 
demands tliat were made on tlie blood, the treasure, and the ]iatriotisni of 
the i)eople, he never faltered in his convictions of duty, or of the trium])h 
of the flag, and the full restoration of tlie poM'er and unity of the Govern- 
ment. 

There is one thing in the senatorial career of Mr. Chandler to M-hich 
I may refer. While he was identified with all the leading measures of 
Congress, he was untiring in his devotion to the interests of Michigan and 
the great Northwest. His proinjitness in aiding the citizens of his State 
without distinction of creed or ])arty was proverliial. His zeal and fidelity 
ill this particulax were as broad as the Commonwealth that had so gladly 
honored him. It was this which added so largely to his popularity at 
home ; and his warmest friends were found alike in all parties. 

Called by President (rrant to tlie Secretaryshi]) of the Interior, he as- 
sumed the duties of tiiis jierplexing bureau, displaying a tact, an energy, 
and an executive ability tliat surjuised even tliose who knew him best. 
With clear head and stout heart, in-evailing evils were stami)ed out with 
unfaltering courage. With an unswerving })ur]>ose he brought order out 
of confusion, infusing new life into the various branches of the Dei)ai"t- 
ment, and clearly demonstrated that the i)ul)lic service can be successfully 
accompli.slied by bringing to its aid unflinching integrity and vigorous 
common sense. 

At the close of the administration of President Grant, Mr. Chandler 
returned to his liome and to private life. Popular fallacies upon the sub- 
ject of the currency had been widely disseminated ; Michigan was not 
exempt from tlie contagion. These were to be met with argument and 
the delusions dispelled. It was then that he relinquished his plans for 
recreation and an antici|iafed foreign trip, and again buckling on his 
armor, with his accustomed energy, he led the van in a decisive and vic- 
torious battle for honest money. 

There are Init few leaders of men ; Mr. Chandler was clearly one of 
the few. For more than a quarter of a century he had been a faithful 
servant of the ])eoi)le. In 1878 lie was again returned to the Senate, and 
he brought with him the same unceasing devotion to his State and his 
country that had ever characterized his public life. His voice again heard 
in the Senate Chamber had no uncertain sound, and was echoed to the 
ends of tiie land. 

During the autumnal months of the year which has just closed, Mr. 
Chandler was almost constantly occupied in addressing large assem- 
blies of the people, in various sections of the country, on the political 



30 ZACHAKIAH CHANDLER. 



topics of the day. In arousing and retaining the interest of an audience 
few men possess his magnetic power. In these his later efforts, he seemed 
to display new energy and power, achieving a remarkable reputation as a 
most effective public speaker. His fame and his popularity were at their 
zenith. Had his life been spared, it is more than probable that the repre- 
sentatives from the State he had so long and so faithfully served would, 
with one voice have presented his name as their first choice for the most 
exalted position in the gift of the people. 

On the evening of the last day of October he addressed the people of 
Chicago. And never had he spoken more acceptably. Making his ar- 
rangements to return to his home the next day, he retired to his room, 
and, after pleasant converse with friends, at the midnight hour he lay 
down to rest. It was that peaceful rest which shall remain unbroken 
until tlie archangel's trump shall be heard at the great day. 

I need not speak particularly of Mr. Chandler's domestic life, or of 
his warm attachment to those who made up his home circle. We have to 
speak of him as a friend, a citizen, a public man. Strong in his convic- 
tions, stalwart in his opinions, and fearless in their avowal, there was no 
bitterness in his nature : all his tendencies were to the genial side of life. 

Friend of my youth, companion of my manhood and of my maturer 
years, farewell ! Strong in the defense of right, true in friendship, and 
unsullied in integrity, may we who yet linger be imitators of those traits 
whicli ennobled your life and have engraved your name upon the imper- 
ishable pages of your country's history. 

Mr. President, I move the adoption of the pending resolutions. 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the resolu- 
tions. 

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously ; and (at two o'clock and 
forty-six minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. 



EULOGIES DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTA- 
TIVES, JANUARY 28, 1880. 

A message from tlie Senate, l)y Mr. Burch, its Secretary, communicated 
the resolutions of tliat IkkIv upon tlie announcement of the (lea,th of Hon. 
Zachahiah Ciiandlkr, late a Senator of the United States from tlu^ 
State of Michigan ; wluch were read, as follows : 

Ix THE Senate op the Unitku States, 

January 28, 1S80. 

Resolved, That the Senate received with profound sorrow the announcement of the 
death of Zaciiariah OiiANDLKK, late a Senator of the United States from the State of 
Michigan, and for nearly nineteen years a member of this body. 

Resolved, That, to express some estimate held of his eminent services in a long public 
career, rendered conspicuous by fearless, patriotic devotion, the business of the Senate 
be now suspended, that the associates of the departed Senator may pay fitting tribute 
to his public and private virtues. 

Resolved, That the loss of the country, sustained in the death of Mr. C'UANDLEk, was 
manifest by expressions of public sorrow through the land. 

Resolved, That, as a mark of respect for the memory of the dead Senator, the members 
of the Senate will wear crape upon the left arm for thirty days. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these resolutions to the House 
of Rei)resentatives. 

Resolved, That, as an additional mark of respect for the memory of the deceased, the 
Senate do now adjourn. 

Mr. CONGER. I offer the resolutions which I send to the desk. 
The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives has received with profound sorrow the 
announcement of the death of Hon. Zachakiah Chandler, late a United States Senator 
from the State of Michigan. 

Resolved, That business be now suspended to allow fitting tributes to be paid to his 
public and private virtues; and that, as a further mark of respect to the memory of the 
deceased, the House at the close of such remarks shall adjourn. 

Mr. NEWBERRY. Mr. Speaker, for over twenty years the name of 
Zachakiah Chandler has been a household word iii the State of Michi- 
gan. His business, social, private, public, and political life belongs solely 
to and is a part of the history of that State. He was born December 10, 
1813, in New Hampshire, in sight of the granite hills of New England and 
came to Michigan in 1888, before he became of age. Soon after his arrival 
in Michigan he engaged in mercantile business, and laid the foundation 
of his great fortune, showing the same careful, untiring energy, foresight 
and straightforward integrity and honesty that followed him through 
life. While thus engaged in active liusiness, with quiet, persistent, and 
unflagging assiduity, he acquired that knowledge of men and books that 
became in his afterlife a surprise even to his best friends. Constantly 
employed by day in the busy marts of trade and commerce, clear-headed 
and keen, he attended to his constantly increasing business. Busy hours 
over, the book and tlie library gave him their richest treasures. 

Blessed witli a home and fireside where one of the best and noblest of 
women was ever ready to welcome him and brighten his life, whose 
domestic charm of manner was only surpassed by the winning gi-aces 
always shown in receiving the welcome friends of her husband, his 
life in early manhood was passed without a thought, as I believe, of a 
public career. 

My own first and earliest recollections of him were, when as a boy, I 
was placed in his class in the Sabbath school of the First Presbyterian 
church of the city of Detroit. He was then one of the active young men 
of that church, earnestly engaged in all church-work. 

He took no active part in political life until 1851, when he was elected 
mayor of Detroit. In 1857 he was elected Senator in place of General 
Lewis Cass, re-elected in 1863, and again in 1869. He was Senator con- 



32 ZACHARIAII CHANDLER. 



timiously from 1857 to 1875, eighteen years. He was appointed Secretary 
of the Interior in Octolier, 1875, and again elected to the Senate in 1879. 
Dining liis senatorial terms occnrred some of the most memorable events 
in the history of this nation. 

Looking hack now, it is easy to see how, step hy step, the United States 
was gradually drawing nearer and nearer to the most tremendous strug- 
gle of ancient or modern times, to that crime of crimes, a civil war. In 
all the events that go to make u]) the history of those years, Mr. Chan- 
DLKR was one of the living, energetic actors. 

The gradual extension of slave territoa-y in the United States was 
arousing the attention, the crimes ])erpetrated under the code of slavery 
was raising to the i)itch of horror, the religious and moral sentiment, not 
only of tlie people of the United States, hut of the world. The Kansas 
civil war was swelling and raising its portentous head on the western 
frontier. Old John Brown and his hardy sharp-shooters in Kansas were 
educating themselves and the nation to a hatred of slavery and the ex- 
tension of slave territory. Free speech, free territory, and free men 
was being raised as the war-cry of a great political uprising. After-events 
showed that Mr. Chandler had given tliese matters close attention. 

There was filibustering in Culja and Nicaragua l)y the South in hoi^es 
of making slave States to offset the ra])id growth of the free States of the 
Northwest. Threats of resistance and secession were oi)enly made by the 
South. The crack of the ,slave-whip was heard even in Congress over the 
heads of independent men from the North. The doctrine that any citi- 
zen with his slaves had a right to enter u])on any territory of the United 
States and retain his slaves, called squatter sovereignty, was convulsing 
the land. The atrocious Lecompton act was passed. The fugitive-slave 
law, with all its attendant horrors, was being enforced, and Northern 
States ])assed acts to protect the liberty of tiieir colored citizens. 

Lilve a flash of lightning from a clear sky came the attack of John 
Brown and his army of ten or fifteen men on Harper's Ferry, in Vir- 
ginia : and the whole South was thrown into a paroxysm of terror through 
fear of a servile war. 

Upon all these subjects Mr. Chandler had given his views to the na- 
tion in the Senate. 

The Democratic convention at Charleston followed in May, 18(>0. The 
war of factions — the South against the North— was the fatal wedge that 
then and there disrupted the old Democratic ]>arty. Substantially the 
opening gun of the rebellion was fired by that convention, and its echoes 
have never ceased to rever))erate to this day in the Democratic party. 
From that fatal day in Charleston events ra.pi»lly hastened to war. actual 
war. Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and traitorous hands were 
busy, traitorous hearts were plotting, to betray, break down, and destroy 
this Government. 

A Secretary of the Treasury utterly uprooted the credit of the Gov- 
ernment and substantially made it a bankrui)t. ASecretaiy of War sold 
its cannon and guns or shipped them to southern arsenals, and sent its 
effective Army to out-of-the-way places on the distant frontier. A Sec- 
retary of the Navy sold our ships and naval stores and ammunition, sent 
loyal officers to sea in rotten unseaworthy hidks, and scattered the ser- 
viceable ships and vessels to our most distant stations. An Attorney- 
General advised the President that he could not use force against a 
State. A Chief-,! ustice refused to issue Avarrants to ari'est traitors. 
Every Department was demoralized or in traitorous hands. 

Lincoln was inaugurated, and then came the first gun of actual war at 
Sumter. 

Through all these stormy scenes Chandler was ever and always watch- 
ful, ready, alert, brave, and outspoken. 

In the debates and stormy scenes of the Senate lie took his full share 



ZACHAIIIAH CHANDLER. 33 



both of responsibility and debate. Long before his "blood-letting letter" 
he had warned the Southern Senators that their actions meant, for them, 
revolution or a halter. He denounced the Lecompton act, the fugitive- 
slave bill, and the prosecutions under it. His painting of the Kansjis 
horrors, burnings, whippings, and tortures of men and women who dared 
advocate free speech and free Territories for freemen will stand with the 
tremendous philippics of the old Greek and Homan orators and states- 
men. But time will fail me to enumerate all his labors. 

During the civil war and the years of reconstruction following, his great 
business experience, his grand executive ability, his almost prophetic 
foresight, his extraordinary sagacity and wisdom in the conduct of affairs, 
brought him to the front. 

His judgment in regard to one of the noted generals in command of the 
Army of the Potomac showed his Avonderful sagacity and decision of 
character, and the strong reliance he had upon the great under-currents 
of popular opinion and wisdom to justify his action. He denounced this 
general, and in the most positive manner charged him with failure as a 
military commander, and as utterly incompetent to conduct successfully 
a great campaign. This charge, made and substantially proved in the 
Senate and before the country, resulted in a change of commanders of the 
Union Army, and, as a further result, final victory. It was sought sub- 
sequently to reverse this decision by an appeal to the people of the coun- 
try in a presidential campaign, but the result showed that Chandler was 
right, and his action as proper and patriotic, was triumphantly vindicated 
by the nation, and the removed general became the defeated presidential 
candidate. 

\V ith the close of the war came another class of legislation, and here, 
as everywhere else, Ciiandlek"s clear-headed business experience, and 
ready facility of grasping details, and grouping principles, and reaching 
successfully the end. came into play. There were reconstruction acts and 
financial acts of stupendous magnitude to be considered, revenues in un- 
heard-of amounts to be collected, taxation to be adjusted, and amounts 
to be raised that staggered the most sanguine ; a nation of freedmen 
to be raised to the standard of citizens, a race of slaves to be educated to 
understand the rights and duties and obligations of freemen ; banking 
and loan acts, legal-tender and currency acts ; treaties to be renewed ; 
new relations with foreign nations to be entered into, old relations to be 
strengthened ; intern;!,tional and constitutional questions, new and old, 
arising out of the war unheard of in its magnitude and astounding as to 
its results, to be settled ; wounded soldiers to be cared tor ; an army to be 
disbanded ; the Soutliern States to be rehabilitated ; amendments of the 
Constitution to be adjusted to the changed condition of the people ; in a 
word, the autonomy of the nation was to be re-established. All these and 
a thousand other subjects had to be and were considered by him apparently 
with equal ease, and the proceedings of the Senate will show his partici- 
pation from day to day in them all. 

The great men whose names are linked with the history of the civi war 
and the rehabilitation of the nation are fast passing away. Lincoln, 
Seward, Chase, Stanton, Greeley, Wilson, Sumner, Morton, and now 
Zacuakiaii Chandler, have vanished from the scenes, and in the rec- 
ords of history and the memories of those still remaining must rest their 
glorious fame. 

l^rom Senator Chandler's first entrance into public life he was always 
the vigorous, rapid, sledge-hammer dealer of telling blows — no fears or 
quaking as to results. When the blow was delivered it was straight from 
the shoulder, vigorous and effective, delivered because he believed it nec- 
esssary and without thinking of the tremendous effect of the stroke. 

To the looker-on, often, the effect was not immediately apparent ; it did 
not seem much of a blow ; but the next day, the next week, the next 



34 ZACIIARIAII CHANDLER. 



month, the effect aa'ouIcI be manifest. Men would be talking of liis power; 
and a little speech of ten minutes would be ])rinted in every newspaper, 
talked of on every corner, read at every fireside, in tlie city, in the coun- 
try, on the mountain, in the valley, on the plain, in the palace, down 
among the miners, up among the woodmen, in the drawing-room of the 
swift-rolling express train, in the forecastle of the fast-speeding ocean 
steamer, in the pulpit, in the pew, on the rostrum, on the stage, rousing 
the laggard, encouraging the timid, emboldening the brave, nerving the 
patriotic, striking terror to the traitor. 

One element of his power was in his use of clear Anglo-Saxon words, 
meaning exactly what he said and saying exactly what he meant, and 
doing it so clearly that each hearer knew he was but crystallizing into 
thought and expression the exact floating idea in his own mind in the 
words that ought to be used. 

He had a masterly way of using plain words for plain people, with plain 
meaning. He used no tricks of rhetoric, no flowers of speech, no studied 
expression, no graceful gesture. They would have been utterly out of 
place with him. But his facts would be true and telling — his speech rough- 
hewed but strong, his gestures ungainly but powerful. He was listened 
to by his friends because of their love ; listened to by his enemies be- 
cause his power compelled their attention. AVarm, i)ositive, and magnetic 
to his friends, he was stern, unyielding, aggressive in the presence of his 
enemies ; always, however, battling for the right as he believed it. Firm 
and steadfast in his convictions, with him the contest must go on until 
he was victorious. 

As he was always ready to give blows, so he could receive them. 

The story is told of him, that amid the exciting scenes preceding the 
withdrawal of senatorial traitors in 1861, when some of them, goaded to 
madness by his merciless accusations of traitors, turned, and with fiery 
Southern eloquence hurled stinging epithets and bloody threats and words 
of frenzied fury at him, he sat with a smile of scorn and derision, 
looking them steadily in the face, as though he heai\I them not but pitied 
their agonized emotions. Aftenvard, on being asked why he did not 
reply, he raid, " Let me tell you a story." Holding his hands in front of 
him Avith his two thumbs together, he said, " Do you see, one of my 
thumbs is shorter than the other, twisted and broken. Well, once driv- 
ing a yoke of oxen in my younger days, I got very mad at one of them, 
and raved and tore around considerably, and finally as the ox did not seem 
to care much about it, in my rage I struck him as hard as possible with 
my fist, thinking to break a rib at least. The sturdy old ox shifted his 
cud from one side to the other, looked around at me very quietly, whisked 
his tail gently, as though a fly was tickling him— while I was just howl- 
ing with a broken thumb. So, "the Senator concluded, " it often happens 
that the man who supposes he is giving some one else a stunning blow 
finds he has only broken his own thumb." 

When Mr. Chandler first appeared in the national political arena in 
1856 he annoimced himself as a candidate for Senator. General Cass, 
whose term was about to expire, looked at the audacious young man with 
undisguised disdain, and Avas not slow to express his contempt for the 
" young man who," he said, "might know how to measure calico and tape, 
sell needles and thread, but was not fit to take Ms place in the council of 
the nation," and added, "we will remit him to his counter." One can 
imagine the expression of countenance with which, in language more 
strong than polite, young Chandler replied, "General Cass will find that 
he spelled his own name without a C when he made that remark." From 
that moment there was, on the part of the coming Senator, constant, 
steady, hard work to one end, and when the Legislature assembled Mr. 
Chandler was elected and General Cass relegated to private life. 

In character and in person Mr. Chandler was like a granite rock 



ZACHARIAII CHANDLER. 35 

struck from the rugged mountains of his native State ; rough-hewn, with 
jagged corners here and there, but solid, strong. His power of resistance 
to wrong or injustice, whenever or whence it might come, his capability 
of sustaining any load, liis power to carry and readiness to assume any 
responsibility made necessary by his position was that of a granite rock 
always. His public life contains no instance of failure. Friends and 
patriots could unhesitatingly rely upon his help, assistance, and counsels 
to sustain the nation and its defenders. Enemies and traitors to his last 
day could rest assured that he was watchful and ready to interfere be- 
tween them or injury or insult to the nation or the soldiers of the Union. 
To liim traitors were a concrete, ever-present reality, not an abstract, far- 
away entity. The definition of treason in the Constitution of his country 
had a personal, pointed application to individuals. Its clear-cut defini- 
tion, '• Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying 
war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and 
comfort,'' his mind instantly applied personally, and a citizen of the 
United States who made war against his own country was a traitor, not 
an ''erring brother," or one who had only been engaged in " some un- 
pleasantness. " An unrepentant rebel was a traitor ever and always. 

iet no one was more ready than he to receive heartily any one desirous 
of returning to his allegiance to his flag and his country. 

The great leader of the rebellion, who, with the oath of allegiance al- 
most warm upon Ids lips, went out from the Senate of the United States, 
where he had given his pledge of loyalty to the Government, ay, his own 
Government, fieely and voluntarily, with hand upraised to heaven, and 
called God to witness his truth, to levy war against the United States, 
which act the Constitution had declared treason, was to him a traitor, 
whose name should never be enrolled on the roll of honor — the pension- 
roll of the patriotic, loyal, maimed, and wounded soldiers of the Union 
Army. Chandler's last speech in the Senate went to the hearts of his 
countrymen, and will live Avith those of the distinguished orators and 
patriots of the early days of the Eepublic. 

That there was one man at least in the Senate of the United States who 
dared to lift an indignant voice for patriots and patriotism, and against 
traitors and treason, gladdened the hearts and strengthened the hands of 
millions of citizens. The distinction betAveen right and wrong, between 
loyal citizens and rebels, between patriots and traitors, seemed to be fast 
dying out, till a few burning words, in a midnight session, forced out of 
his inmost heart by insulting wrong, went like a zig-zag stroke of light- 
ning through the wordy sophisms, and revealed to an indignant people 
the insult that was being attempted to land, country, flag, and all the pa- 
triotic impulses of tlie nation. 

It is said that the eagle, when the storm arises, the lightnings flash, and 
tliunders roll, and heavy winds and black, portentous clouds are rushing 
through the heavens, spreads his broad wings and soars above the storm. 
Thus it was with our dead friend. When peril threatened the country, 
when disaster spread ruin and desolation, when men's hearts failed from 
fear, Chandler rose above the storm, scanned the ruin, the disaster, the 
peril and dismay, grasped the situation, mastered it in all its details, and 
calmly and quietly led the way to safety. 

He was a born commander and leader of men — a power that would and 
could and did overcome all obstacles. In the calm or in the storm, in the 
whirlwind or in the tempest, always and ever self -poised, cool, daring, 
positive, ready for action. He was not the light-house to show others the 
way ; he was the daring navigator who, when the light went out and rocks 
on either hand, could seize the helm and convey the ship safely into port. 

Rarely has this country been so thoroughly shocked as it was on the 
morning of November 1, 1879, when the lightning flashed through the land— 

Senator Chandler was found dead in his bed this morning. 



The air had been full of his utterances ; the pai)ers loaded with the closing 
speeches of this honest-hearted, earnest-minded old man in the campaign 
then ending. His last speech but one was made, and the flash, " he is 
dead," came with the stunning effect of a blow. 

]Srever so well knowTi, never so earnest, never so admired and loved and 
appreciated by his friends ; never so powerful against, hated, and feared 
by his enemies ; but with harness on, his steady, manly voice ringing in 
the ears of his countrymen, he went down as the warrior in the shock of 
battle ; ay, and at the very moment of anticipated victory, although the 
shout of actual victory he was never again to hear in this world. 

Farewell to thee ! illustriunn statesman, with a lion's heart ' 
Farewell to thee ! uncompromising patriot, with a true soul ! 
Farewell to thee ! indefatigable worker, with an iron frame ! 
Farewell to thee ! undaunted friend, with a faithful breast ! 
Farewell to thee ! loyal citizen, with patriotic impulses ! 
Farewell to thee ! stalwart politician, intrepid counselor, 

Fearless adviser, genial companion ! 
"We mourn for thee ! A Senator without reproach ; 

A man without stain ; 

A soul above suspicion. 

" The air is thick with d<'ath. His flying shafts 

Strike down to-day the bravest in the land; 
And here and there, how suddenly he wafts 

His fatal arrow ! Nor can long withstand 

The mailed warrior, or the statesman manned, 
Against him. But why should he hasten on 

» * * * to strike one dovm 

Just in the zenith of his strength and glory of renown 

" Chandler ! above thy grave we bow in tears ! 
The generous friend, the unrelentinjf foe. 
In halls of state who stood for many years. 
Like fabled knight, thy visage all aglow, 
Receiving, giving sternly, blow for blow ! 
♦ «»*»♦* 

" Champion of right ! But from eternity's far shore 

Thy spirit will return to join the strife no more. 

Rest, statesman, rest ! Thy troubled life is o'er." 

Mr. WILLIAMS, of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, the largest tree in the 
forest sometimes breaks the stillness of the day by the suddenness of its 
fall : so Zaciiariah Chandler startled a continent when he went down 
to death ! Thirty-six hours before he died he was the guest of my own 
city. He spoke there, both in the afternoon and evening, each time to 
a large concourse of people. He retired at twelve o'clock, and rested well 
through the night. 

Many of our citizens bade him good-bye at the early train for Chicago ; 
^and little did they think as the cars rolled out into the light of that beau- 
tiful morning that it was the last he was ever to behold on earth! Yet 
so it was, for within twenty-one liours thereafter he was dead. 

I think only those who saw him during these last hours of his life could 
realize the suddenness of his death. Though the grim messenger walked 
beside him, no shadow fell upon his pathway. His thoughts were all of 
life ; he could scarcely have been thinking of the possibilities of death; 
his every act and energy was devoted to the work before him ; he talked 
of nothing else, and apparently he thought of nothing else. 

He was the ararit courier of republicanism. His voice had rung out 
from Maine to Wisconsin. He had moved the people by the potency of 
his presence and the earnestness of his appeals. He believed that na- 
tional destiny itself trembled in the balance, and he imparted this belief 
to the masses wherever he went, for they knew that his heart was in his 
work and his convictions were in his words. 

Amid scenes like these it could hardly have been possible that he had a 
thought of what was to come. He could scarcely have dreamed that 
while yet the plaudits of thousands were ringing in his ears he was to 
meet, in the heart of that great city, in the dead hour of the night, in the 



ZACIIARIAH CHANDLER. 87 

silent loneliness of his room, that dread messenger, who gave no warning 
and accei)ted no delay ; so yet it was, for he awoke only from the sleep of 
life to sink back again in the sleep of death. 

No, Mr. Speaker, none but those who remember tlie earnest manner 
and pathetic voice with which he besonglit tlie chairman of each success- 
ive meeting to telegraph him at Detroit on the night of the election the 
result of the contest can realize the overmastering interest which had 
taken possession of him. The news lie so longed to hear did indeed 
flash along the wires, but whether it died out in the darkness of that 
shoreless sea, or whether it penetrated the mystic regions of the great 
beyond, no word ever comes back to tell us. 

We who speak of ZAcnAiiiAii Ciiandlkr here to-day must speak of 
him as he was, for he never feared to si)eak for himself. And his words 
will be clierished and remembered wlien ours are lost and forgotten. No 
flowers of rhetoric, no higli-wrought historic parallels, no half -drawn apol- 
ogies for what he was or Avhat he did, will do for him. 

He was a })lain, blunt man. He Avas combative, he was aggressive, and 
in what he believed to be right, lie was relentless. He was a man of the 
peo})le, he was a friend of tlie poor, he loved liberty, he hated oppression, 
he abhorred treason, and he detested hypocrisy. He was a partisan, he 
was a patriot, he was a hero ! 

Like the oak he resembled, he was reared in storms and rocked in tem- 
pests. Strong and massive in body, he Avas stronger in will ; firm in prin- 
ciples, he was formidable in argument ; quick to see the salient points of 
a question, he brought his broad common sense to bear upon it, and not 
infrequently by a single sally he broke through and demolished a whole 
battle-line of sophistry. AVho can ever forget the expression of that face, 
or the instantaneous effect produced upon thousands, when from the ros- 
trum he put that one question : 

If this is not agoveriiinent, what did the rebels surrender to at Appomattox ? I tell you, 
my friends, they surrendered to the Government of the United S'a,tes of America. ! 

Or when, on the memorable night, in the Senate of the United States 
he made that terrific onslaught whicli startled both sides of the Chamber 
and roused the whole country, what member even of the opposition who 
did not feel the force of what he said ? In the language of Mr. Webster, 
it was one of those outbursts of passion and power which, if they come 
at all, come "• like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the 
bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force ! " 

This was the secret of Mr. Chandler's power. His methods were 
clear and practical, his reasoning synthetic, and his attacks spontaneous 
and irresistible. While otliers were examining the bricks and mortar in 
the structure, and carefully calculating the resistance to be overcome, he 
selected his point of attack, and with crowbar and sledge breached the 
walls and carried the citadel Ity storm. 

Savants and philoso])hers m.ay style these methods crude and Western, 
but while the names of Douglas, Morton, and Chandler live, the people 
will believe thern to possess an innate force which all the learning of the 
schools cannot give. 

The opinion is often expressed that certain very good and competent 
men are holding back a political millennium in tlie country by their 
persistent refusal to accept ofllce and enter upon public life. Somebody 
has ungraciously said of such, that they were made up of two parts of 
selfishness and two of timidity. I know not how the fact may be, but if 
it be true, Zachariah Chandler did not belong to this class. He never 
took counsel either of his selfislmess or his fears. He was not possessed 
of that happy temperament which enabled him to stand quietly by while 
aggressive wrong was crushing out defenseless right. 

By the very nature of his make up, he was forced to enter the arena. 
And thus he met all the malignity, denunciation, and abuse which ever 



38 ZACHARTAH CHANDLER. 

come to the earnest, the faithful, and the true. Yet nothing could dis- 
suade him. The critical might carp, the mediocre patronize, and the 
malign scoff and deride, but all the pigmies of earth and sky could not 
stay the dauntless old hero in the work he had marked out for himself. 
To such a man the holding of civil office was the merest incident in the 
world; for whether in public or private life he was the natural defender of 
the people. 

That Mr. Chandler was.intense and bitter, that he sometimes wrongly 
suspicioned the motives and acts of others, is only to say that he belonged 
to the class of positive men ; but that under it all there was a broad and 
generous sincerity and a heart as tender as a child's none who knew him 
need to be told. He was, indeed, in earnest; but if any supposed his earnest- 
ness took on only the cold malignity of hate, they studied his character 
to but little purpose. I could only claim to know him as Ave all knew him 
here, yet I do not care to be told that he was moved by other than the 
loftiest and purest motives. 

Only the night but one before he died, in my own house, in common 
with others, I saw that firm lip quiver and those stern eyes moisten as he 
recountered the measureless wrongs which had been visited upon the 
poor freedmen of the South ; and I believe mortal man was never actuated 
by higher or holier motives than he when he swore by the God that made 
him that he would never bate one jot nor tittle of effort until these mon- 
strous wrongs should be righted. 

I allude to these things here in no partisan spirit, for that should be 
banished from these halls to-day ; but I speak of them only to be just to 
him in his graved as he was just and fearless before all the world. And I 
feel sure that could he have left any injunction behind, it would have 
been : " If you speak of me at all, in the language of sacred song, speak 
of me — 

Just as I am." 

Burke I think it was who said that true sentiment was the logic of 
common sense. Such, I think, was the sentiment of Zaciiariah Chan- 
dler. It was plain, practical and direct. 

No more touching provisions can be found in the wills of public men 
than in those of Thaddeus Stevens and Mr. C'handler. While the 
former made no provision for the care of his own grave, he set aside a 
sum of money and directed that the " sexton keep his mother's grave in 
good order, and plant roses and other cheerful flowers at its four corners 
every spring." 

So Mr. Chandler, with just words enough to express his meaning, 
said, in effect, to his wife and daughter, " You are my only heirs ; as you 
have loved and trusted me, so I love and confide in you. I lay my for- 
tune at your feet, and that you may be unfettered in its enjoyment and 
use, I relieve it from any word coming back from the grave." 

Could affection be more tender ? Could confidence be more complete ? 
Where shall the well-springs of the human heart be better studied than in 
the wills of these two remarkable men ? 

Impartial history will assign Mr. Chandler his proper place in the 
ranks of America's public men. We cannot do that here to-day. It may, 
however, be safely said that if Seward, Chase, and Sumner might draft 
the plans for the fabric of freedom. Wade, Stevens, and Chandler might 
lay its foundations and lift its walls to completion. Koble trio ! How 
fiercely they wrought ; how well they triumphed ! 

The last of them now sleeps on the banks of the river he loved so fondly. 
And to-day Wisconsin comes with her foster-mother, Michigan, to lay a 
garland upon his grave. He loved to tell us that the boundaries of his 
own county of Wayne once embraced both our States. Representatives 
of Michigan, your loss is our loss ; and over our common calamity a na- 
tion grieves to-day. We come to mingle our tears with your tears, and 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 89 

to utter the fervent prayer that he who sleeps so near your beautiful 
metropolis may rest in peace so Ions as that city shall stand — yea, so long 
as the waters that roll by it flow outward to tlie sea. 

Mr. HUBBELL. My Speaker, it is said that " death loves a shining 
mark, a signal blow. ■" Than in Zaciiariah Chandler, whose death to- 
day we mourn in common with the whole patriotic people of the nation, 
the "fell sergeant" has had few more brilliant marks, has struck few 
nobler lives, and the Kepublic lias had to mourn no more useful citizen, 
no more upright or purer patriot. 

Mr. Chandler was a native of New England. He was born at Bed- 
ford, in the State of New Hampshire, December 10, 1813 ; in the State 
which gave birth to and molded the character of Daniel Webster ; in the 
land of strong convictions, of sterling integrity, of imcompromising 
patriotism, and inflexible devotion to freedom. Here in his native State, 
building up a vigorous frame and robust health, among its granite hills — 
here amid its noble associations and grand institutions of learning ; amid 
a people rejoicing in their revolutionary history — in its perils and priva- 
tions and its glories and triumphs— loving freedom and hating oppression, 
Zachariaii Chandler imbibed those rigid principles of justice, that 
invincible love of freedom and of country, that incorruptible integrity 
which he transplanted in his new home in the then "far West," and which 
distinguished every act of his public life, and in support of which he died 
literally in harness. 

In his home in JSIichigan, the State of his adoption, these sterling qual- 
ities were combined with and regulated by an intelligence and sagacity so 
rarely at fault as to enable him to amass an ample fortune, place him at 
the head of the business men of the State, and soon point him out as a 
man of mark, as a man of rare and genuine merit, of great force of char- 
acter, of intrepid courage and sterling worth, and won for him the respect, 
confidence, and enduring love of its people. 

No man was ever trusted in public or private life as was Zachariah 
Chandler by the people of Michigan, and no man ever ended a public 
career against whose integrity less could be said. 

No position in their gift, however high or responsible, no honor, how- 
ever great, was too high for his merits or too great for their love. Thus 
in 1851 he was mayor of Detroit ; in 18-52 the Whig candidate for gov- 
ernor ; in 1857, a Senator of the United States ; in 1863, re-elected as Sen- 
ator ; in 1869, again re-elected ; and again in 1879. In 1875 he was given 
by President Grant the portfolio of the Interior. In every trust he ac- 
quitted himself honorably, fearlessly, ably and returned it impressed with 
the marks of his genius. 

In nothing, indeed, was Mr. Chandler an ordinary man. As a hus- 
band and a father and a friend, ever faithful, trusting, and true, his great 
manly heart delighted in exhibitions of the tenderest devotion. He 
never abandoned a friend, and was ever truest and most devoted to him 
in the hour of his misfortune or trials. He was not a place-seeker, nor a 
time-server ; but he was a lover of his country and a hater of its ene- 
mies, and always filled to the measure the place he occupied ; and being a 
man of strong convictions and dauntless courage the enemies of his 
country always felt his presence, and were never spared his bitterest in- 
vectives. 

Mr. Speaker, I knew Mr. Chandler intimately. He was to me a 
"friend, philosopher, and guide," and I should be unjust to his memory 
did I not speak of him as he was — a man who always acted his honest 
convictions without regard to or fear of the consequences. 

As a Cabinet minister, with the portfolio of the most complicated and 
troublesome Department of the (iovernment, noted for its intrigues and 
scandals, the Interior, with its important divisions and the intricate and 



delicate character of manj' of their important duties very difflcnlt to com- 
prehend and to intelligently manage, and rendered doubly so by outside 
combinations for the promotion of private advantage and fraud — in that 
responsible and dilficult trust, his masterly executive ability, his great 
common sense, his disciplined business habits, his integrity, his wonder- 
ful industry, his intuitive knowledge of man and tlieir motives, and his 
great courage and nerve rendered liis administration such a marked suc- 
cess that his able and accomplislied successor luiblicly admitted that his 
ambition was to leave the Department in as good shape as he received it. 
He never parleyed with men whom he believed to be dishonest. To il- 
lustrate his blunt and direct methods, pardon an anecdote : Soon after 
he took charge of the Interior Department, I met him here in Washing- 
ton and the usual salutations had hardly passed between us when he said : 
"I have been reforming in the Interior Department to-day." And in 
reply to my query as to what he had done, he rei)lied : " I have emptied 
one large room and left it in cliarge of a colored porter, who has the key, 
who cannot read nor write, and who is instructed to allow no one to enter it 
without my orders, and I am under the impression that the public inter- 
ests are saife so far as that room and its business are concerned until I 
can find some honest men to put into it." A further conversation de- 
veloped the fact that by plain business metliods he had collected his 
proofs, and thus armed he could only deal a deadly blow. Thus early he 
mastered all the intricate and difficult details of the service ; early he 
clearly comprehended its needs and vigorously and laboriously applied 
himself to their practical accomplishment. Iii short, he established or- 
der where chaos previously ruled, reorganized details, secured efficiency, 
and effected a due responsibility in all tlie ])ranches of the service. 

Honest himself, he tolerated no doubtful practices, no improper rela- 
tions in the Department. Fraud vanished at his touch. Incompetency 
and imbecility met their reward, and he transmitted the portfolio to his 
successor with the Department purged of many injurious scandals, and 
the service, in all its details, greatly simplified and improved. 

As a Senator, Rome, in the days of her highest virtue and greatest 
strength, had none nobler, purer, or more fearless. Entering the Senate 
during the stormy debates and violent struggles of the sections on the 
question of slavery. Mr. Ciiaxdler stepped at once to the front as a rec- 
ognized and trusted leader on the side of freedom. The times were full 
of peril, and terribly tested all the metal in men's souls. But during 
that struggle, in debate, from 1857 until ISfiO, carried on on the one side by 
patriotic, liberty-loving men, who hated slavery and antagonized it be- 
cause they dreaded its extension, and on the other by men who wor- 
shiped slavery, were bound to extend and perpetuate it or destroy the 
common government inherited from the fathers, who recognized the code 
and under its bloody rules tried to intimidate the representatives of the 
people from the Northern States in the discliarge of their duties, no man 
ever did or will say that Zaoiiariah Ciiandlkr ever faltered in the dis- 
charge of his duty as he saw it. He abhorred the code, condemned alike 
by the laws of man and of God, yet while in the discharge of his public 
trusts it had no terrors for him, and never caused liim for a moment to 
falter in the full and complete performance of his duties. 

It is not my purpose here to enter into that memorable debate upon 
the question of slavery and tlie rights of tlie States which preceded and 
culminated in the war of rebellion, more tlian to say that Mr. Chandler's 
sagacity readily penetrated the designs of the Southern leaders, readily 
saw that slavery was only a means to the consummation of their pur])ose 
— ;-the disruption of the Union. Indignantly and vehemently he raised 
his voice in exposure of this traitorous plot. He was "no orator as Bru- 
tus " was. He ai)parently despised all mere ornaments of speech, but in 
his vigOiOus, terse English he left no doubt as to his meaning and pur- 



ZACIIARIAH CHANDLER. 41 



pose. And thus lie fearlessly labored everywhere and on all occasions to 
arouse the country to a sense of the impending danger, and to prepare 
for a conflict of arms in support of the Union. He had no faith in com- 
promise, hut felt that the inevitable and deadly conflict must come, and 
tried to prepare his countrymen for it. Tlie events which rapidly fol- 
lowed demonstrated the wisdom as it did the justice of his conclusions 
and his course. The rebellion came upon us with its appalling sacrifices 
and sufferings, and awfully vindicated his sagacity and the justice of his 
charges against the Southern leaders. 

Great names and great men, so-called, unless distinguished by worth 
and patriotic motives and corresponding actions, received from him no 
homage. His country to him was all in all. Every patriotic man he 
claimed as a friend, and to every patriot, to all patriots, of every grade or 
character, if their sincerity were demonstrated by works, he yielded his 
whole support, all his weight and influence. 

But the man who laid himself down in the pathway of his country's 
honor and glory, the man who, Avhether from imbecility or design, ob- 
structed or impeded his country's triumphant march to victory, to 
perfect and permanent peace, to that man Zachartah Chandler was 
an inflexible foe, and to him he fearlessly proclaimed his hostility. 

Asa mem her of the Committee on the Conduct of the War he was 
active, terribly in earnest, and untiring in industry, and rendered to the 
nation the most important service. No name, however high, baffled his 
inquiries or escaped his judgments. 

Notwithstanding he had regarded McClellan's appointment as wise and 
judicious, yet. for reasons already made a part of our country's history, 
he boldly arraigned him in the face of the country, in the teeth of his 
gi'eat popularity and the great power he wielded in command of the 
armies, as utterly incompetent for the weighty duties of his high posi- 
tion, and demanded his removal, as justified by the highest reasons of 
expediency and the loftiest motives of ])atriotism. 

iielieving that Pope, at second Bull Eun, was sacrificed by Fitz-John 
Porter, and that our loss of life and disaster at that battle was caused by 
Porter's criminal insubordination, he boldly denounced him as a traitor 
to his country and demanded his trial and punishment. 

Against all men whom he believed to be untrue to his country in her 
hour of peril, his great patriotic heart instinctively rebelled, and they 
were made the victims of his terrible denunciations. 

The war of the rebellion ended, Mr. Chandler took a prominent part 
in that legislation which reconstructed the States in rebellion and gave 
them representation in the halls of Congress, and here as elsewhere his 
career was marked by the same distinguishing traits of character. 

Coming into the Senate again in 1878, he immediately stepped to the 
front and the country knew that plain, honest old Zaoh. Chandler, as 
they loved to call him, was again in his seat, and the Democratic party, 
which he never loved, was made painfully aware of his presence. Strip- 
I)ing the guise of flimsy pretexts from off the reasons actuating the men 
who forced the extra session, he sounded the key-note of alarm — the 
bugle-call of the campaign of 1879, in which he labored day and night, 
closing his great work in one of the ablest and grandest speeches of his 
life in the Garden City of America, where, ere the dawn of day succeeded 
his gi-eat effort, he died. The life of the great, honest, and broad-souled 
man went silently out with the watches of the night, and in his death the 
Republic mourns an upright and useful citizen, a noble Senator, a peer- 
less patriot, and humanity an aliiding friend. Apparently in robust 
health, in the vigorous exercise of all his great faculties, peacefully and 
serenely, without a struggle and free from pain, his noble spirit sank into 
the "blind cave of eternal night," passed triumphantly from the active 
scenes and duties of worldly life to the judgment-seat of his God. 



42 ZACHARIAH CHANDLEE. 



Thus yields the cedar to the ax's edg:e, 
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle, 
TTnder whose shade the ramping lion slept ; 
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's sprt'ading tree, 
And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. 

But though dead, he is not forgotten. In every patriot's home, in the 
home of every friend of humanity, of every friend of freedom and free 
institutions, his name will long he cherished with endearing pride ; and 
history in recording his actions, in reviewing his services to his country 
and to mankind, and in its judgment of his character, will as surely rank 
him high among the good and great men of his times. 

Peace to his ashes. 

Mr. CRAPO. Mr. Speaker, the life of Zachariah Chandler is a 
marked illustration of that character which is developed by our American 
institutions and which is distinctly American. In no other country and 
under no other system of society and laws do we look for the manifesta- 
tion of such individual groAvth and power. Starting from the humble 
surroundings of a New England farm, with the limited advantages of a 
plain and simple country home, with the training of the unpretending 
fireside and village school, he emerges into self-reliant manhood. Then 
follow the struggles of life amid the activities and hardships of a Western 
settlement ; the competitions of business, bringing substantial rewards ; 
the contests for higher position, while holding securely the advances 
made ; the reaching out for wider influence and greater mastery over the 
thoughts and acts of men ; and, finally, the control and power which 
made him a recognized leader and a mighty force in the land. With no 
external advantages to aid him, he overcame obstacles and conquered 
opposition and secured for himself commanding position and influence. 
He was conscious of his own inherent strength ; he knew that he lived in 
a country full of opportunities to the earnest and faithful man ; and he 
realized that in this free land men have equal right to place and wealth 
and power if they have will and strength to win them. He asked no odds 
and he accepted no gifts. What he was and what he possessed came as 
the result and reward of his own personal efforts. He did not drift into 
high positions, but earned them by sheer exertion and force of character. 
His history is the record of a successful man ; and we can find few more 
impressive examples, even in this country which is so full of personal 
achievements. 

In private life Mr. Chandler was bluff, hearty, and sincere. He was 
outspoken with the candor of positive truth. He did not conceal his admi- 
ration of one whom he liked, and he was equally open in the expression of 
disapprobation of one he disliked. He was frank and generous in his 
approval, and he was equally free and severe in his condemnation. There 
was an integrity in his friendship and an earnestness in his recognition 
of friends which endeared him to those who knew him intimately. 

The personal qualities Avhich marked his private intercourse were still 
more conspicuous in his public life. There was always the same positive- 
ness of manner and speech. His large frame, his vigorous health, and 
commanding presence were not more remarkable than the robustness of 
his mind, his stout heart, his stalM'art courage, and restless energy. 

His political opinions .were formed during the controversies of the 
Missouri compromise and the attempt to establish slavery in Kansas. He 
entered public life just as the struggle for national supremacy was cul- 
minating into war. He regarded it as a question of liberty or slavery, of 
national unity or its dismemberment. He saw with clear vision the ter- 
rible magnitude of the issue, and this made him a partisan. It was im- 
possible for him, with his consciousness and convictions, to be otherwise 
than a partisan. He was intensely in earnest. He feared Southern ag- 
gression, and unceasingly fought it ; he detested disloyalty, and was 



ZACHARTAH CHANDLER, 43 

bold in liis discoveries of it ; he abhorred the rebellion with intol- 
erant hatred, and labored for its destruction. He would fji-ant no con- 
cession where he believed the principle was vital, and, however hot or 
bitter or uncertain the fi^ht, he neither gave nor asked for quarter. 
During the dark days of war his heart never faltered and his voice never 
tremljied. He exacted the utmost fidelity and diligence from those wlio 
supported the Union cause, and had little respect or charity for those wlio 
brought failure to its arms. His watchfulness and aggressiveness did not 
cease with the war. When conciliation seemed to have faih'd. and the old 
strife, which it was supposed had been buried on tlie battle-field, w^as re- 
vived in Congress, Mr. Chandler naturally came to the front, and with 
the same defiant courage of opinion which gave him master influence 
during the war, he i)rocIaimed in the Senate, and before the people, the 
dangers which threatened the peace and good order of the nation, in lan- 
guage which could not be misunderstood. 

Perhaps in a less turbulent period of our history Mr. Chandler would 
not have occupied so prominent a place. He was not a great statesman, 
but he was needed in an exigency, and most nol)ly did he meet the require- 
ment. ISTo man better understood the ])atriotic impulses of the people, 
and no man had greater power in expressing and arousing popular senti- 
ment. He was in sympathy with the masses ; he had an intense sense of 
justice between man and man ; he estimated men according to their true 
worth ; he never stood upon his dignity, nor by word or manner indicated 
any personal superiority. The coarse dress or rough manner did not rei)el 
him, but every man, however plain or humble, w^as at ease in his presence. 
He stood nearer to the people and had a stronger hold upon them than 
any other Senator. 

The secret of his success and his control of the popular mind may be 
found in his sincerity, his intensity, his constancy, and his directness. 
There was no deceit in his nature. You were never left in doubt about 
his views ; and, what is more, he was never in doubt himself. You al- 
ways knew where to find him. He used vigorous Saxon. His utterances 
were plain and terse. His illustrations, althougli sometimes extravagant, 
were full of rugged meaning, and what they lacked in elegance was made 
np in force. Whatever he said he meant should be understood just as he 
said it. 

There was nothing negative about him. His policy was never timid 
nor vascillating. However great the responsibility, he never hesitated to 
assume it, but he always went to the front. It was this positive, aggress- 
ive, uncompromising spirit which gave him leadership and enabled him 
to infuse courage into men of less boldness. He was impatient of oppo- 
sition, and as ready to condemn his own associates as his opponents when 
their policy was at variance with his own. 

Mr. Chandler was not free from faults, and he never attempted their 
concealment. Every one knew Avhat manner of man he was. He made 
no claim to greatness, nor to any special merit. The men who denounced 
him as a bitter partisan, and who threw stones of hate and ridicide 
against him, even now, before the period of passionate strife in which he 
was an actor has entirely passed away, have acknowledged his virtues. 

His personal integrity, his resistless energy, his burning patriotism, 
his rugged frankness, and his fearless devotion to duty, made him con- 
spicuous in the legislation of the country and in the councils of his 
party. 

He died with the harness on, in the mid-day of his fame and usefulness, 
actively participating with all the fervor of his nature in the struggle 
which he believed of vital consequence to his countrymen. 

We cannot but admire the character of a man who " was the architect 
of his own fortune," and who, under a beneficent and free government, 
which gives equal advantages to all, relying upon his own brave heart and 



44 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 



strong arm and inflomitable will, won a name and wielded a power which 
will continne far beyond the generation in which he lived. 

Mr. BREWEK. Mr. Speaker, on the 1st day of ISTovember last the sad 
annonncement was made that Senator Ciiandlkr was dead ; that his 
lifeless remains were found in bed at the Pacific Hotel, in the city of 
Chicago. The report was doubted at first by the friends of the deceased 
Senator, biit all doubt was soon removed, and the city and State of his 
adoption arrayed themselves in the habiliments of mourning. Senator 
Chandlkr was known to more of the people of Michigan than any other 
of her citizens. The name of Zaciiariaii Chandler, or "OldZach," 
as he was more commonly called, was familiar in every household, and 
was spoken with the utmost freedom by old and young alike, but to-day, 
to them, his voice is stilled in death. To-day his name is spoken with 
sadness and sorrow from the Atlantic to the Pacific, at least in every 
Northern State. Mr. Chandler's life in many respects was an eventful 
one. Born in the town of Bedford, amid the rugged hills of a New 
Hamjishire home, he soon began to exhibit tliose traits of character which 
in after life made him so prominent. In 1833, when but twenty years of 
age, he became satisfied that his native State was no field in which to de- 
velo]) his business powei'S, and he sought a home in the then undeveloped 
great Northwest, and found it in the city of Detroit. Wliat a broad field 
was then opened to the view of the energetic young New Englander ! 
Nearly all our country west of Buffalo at that time was but an uninhab- 
ited wilderness. Michigan was but a territory, with a few thousand in- 
habitants, and contained within its territorial government what is now 
known as the State of Wisconsin. The city of Detroit was but a small 
town, its inhabitants being largely engaged in trade with the natives of 
tlie forest. But the city of Detroit to-day is one of the great cities of the 
Northwest, while Michigan has a population of a million and a half of 
people, and Wisconsin nearly an equal number, and both of these great 
States are teeming witli all the enterprise and industry of the age. Such 
results were obtained during the years of Mr. Chandler's residence in 
Michigan, and was largely due to'his fostering care while in official life. 
Wonder not, then, that the city of Detroit and the State of Michigan 
mourn the loss of her honored dead, for he was always a watchful guar- 
dian of their interests. The plain result of his watchful care for his 
State and his desire to advance her prosperity while in public life is 
visible along all the great chain of lakes and rivers which encompass her 
borders. No one has done more to advance and biiild up the interests 
of the Northwest than tlie late Senator. 

When Mr. Chandler arrived in Detroit, like thousands of other 
young men who then sought a home in the West, his greatest wealth was 
his robust constitution, and his chief cai)ital to start with in the great 
battle of life was his liabits of industry, his self-will, pluck and integrity. 
Soon after his arrival he entered into a business partnership in the dry- 
goods trade with one Franklin Moore, a brother-in-law. This partner- 
ship continued but for a few years, when Mr. Moore retired from the 
firm, Mr. Chandler continuing in the business until he accumulated a 
fortune and became the most prosperous merchant in the State. Mr. 
Chandler's political life commenced in 1851, when he was nominated 
by the Whigs of Detroit and elected mayor of said city. His extensive 
business had made him acquaintances and friends all over the State, and 
in the fall of 1852 he was nominated as the W^hig candidate for governor, 
but, while running largely ahead of his ticket, he was defeated by Hon. 
Robert McClelland, his Democratic opponent. He made his first political 
speeches in his canvass for the governorship, and soon became the recog- 
nized leader of the Whigs of his State. He took an active part in the 
formation of the Republican party at Jackson in 1854, and a leading part 



in the campaigns of 1854 and 1856, speaking in every part of the State, 
and liis plain logic, clear, and forcible language gained him friends 
wherever he went. When the liepublicans obtained control of the Legis- 
lature in 1856 the party and people with great unanimity (lemanded the 
election of Mr. Chandler to succeed General Lewis Cass in the Senate 
of the United States. He took his seat in the Senate on the 4th of 
March, 1857, and was twice re-elected, and served continuously for 
eighteen years. The venerable Hannibal Hamlin is the only one of his 
first associates in the Senate who is serving in a like capacity to-day, and, 1 
believe, the only one now in public life. Js^ early all others sleep the last 
sleep. At the time Mr. Cuandlkr entered the Senate excitement ran 
high over the repeal of the once famous Missouri compromise, and the 
great contest relating to slavery in the Territories was soon fought out 
between the friends of freedom and oppression. 

In this conflict Mr. Chandler stood boldly up for the fundamental 
rights of man, and was a fit representative of his gi-eat liberty-loving 
constituency. The continuous eighteen years of Mr. Chandler's sen- 
atorial career were years fraught with momentous events, and were the 
most eventful years of American history. It was during these years that 
the bondmen were made free, that the nation was saved, the Union re- 
stored, and liberty preserved to the American people. It was during 
these years that the rights of man were more firmly guaranteed by 
amendments to the fundamental law of the land. It was during the 
later years of Mr. Chandler's life that the financial credit and the in- 
tegrity and honor of the nation were at stake ; when demagogues sought 
to build up a political organization upon their country's shame. In the 
settlement of all these great questions, the vote and voice of the late Sen- 
ator truly represented the patriotic sentiment of the people of his State. 
In October, 1875, Mr. Chandler was chosen by President Grant as one 
of his constitutional advisers, and placed at the head of the Interior De- 
partment, where he remained until March 4, 1877. His appointment, at 
first, did not meet with the commendation of the self-assumed, high- 
toned, theoretical politicians of his party ; but when he passed over the 
Interior Department to his successor, the people and press of all parties 
vied Avith each other in commending the manner in which he had con- 
ducted the duties of his office. He demonstrated by practical experience 
that he was the best reformer of the civil service who chose his assistants 
and employes because of their practical knowledge of the duties they 
were selected to perform, rather than he who selected them because they 
succeeded in answering questions relating to matters which in no man- 
ner pertained to their official duties. As Secretary of the Interior he 
purified that Department of the Government, and showed an executive 
talent surpassed by no one who had filled the position. 

Upon the resignation of Senator Christiancy in the spring of 1879, Mr. 
Chandler, as is well known, was chosen by the Legislature of Michigan 
to fill the vacancy caused by such resignation. In his long otticial life liis 
great executive and business ability, his industry and strict integrity, 
liave met the higliest commendation of the press and people of all parties. 
No one has ever been bold enough to charge Zachariah Chandler with 
corruption or peculation in office. Senator Chandler was in maaiy re- 
spects truly a great man. He was not great in his style of oratory ; he 
was not great in his classical learning or in his knowledge of the sciences, 
but he was great, powerfully great, in his knowledge of men. He was 
one who could mold public opinion and assimilate the judgments of men, 
and such a man is truly great. He was a leader of men •, he drew about 
him in his political councils not only the aged, but the young, the vigor- 
ous, and active; he was a man of the people and from the people, and herein 
lay his strength. In his notions he was practical. His language was 
plain, and his ideas were clear and always forcibly expressed. There 



never could be any misapprehension as to Avhich side of a business or 
political question he was on. Mr. Chandler was a partisan, but he was 
first of all a patriot. While he held his country above party, yet he firmly 
believed that the stability of the nation and the political equality and 
welfare of our people depended upon the success of the party he so faith- 
fully labored for and loved so well. He was bold, fearless, and aggressive 
in his language and demeanor ; he was uncompromising in his utterances, 
and never shrank from characterizing offenses in their true light. Had 
he been less fearless he might at times have excused his language by utter- 
ing words spoken by another : 

Judg:e me not ungentle, 
Of iniinners rude, and violent of speech, 
If when the public saff-ty is in question 
My zeal lliiws wai'in and eager from my tongue. 

But he made no apologies. He preferred to leave his countrymen to 
judge his words and motives from his patriotic acts. Mr. Chandler 
was a positive man. He threw the whole power of his intellect against 
that which he believed to be wrong, and he never wavered in his struggle 
to promote right and advance truth and justice. He was possessed of 
great energy and great mental and physical powers, and he never doubted 
his ability to accomplish that which he set out to perform. He adopted 
the motto of another : " Attempt the end and never stand to doubt. " If 
we look back over the pages of the world's history we will find that the 
men of the mold of Mr. Chandler— men that Avere positive, aggressive, 
bold, and fearless in the right— were the men Avho came to the front in 
advancing the gi-eat principles of political and religious liberty. Mr. 
Chandler, above all, w^as an honest man, in official as well as private 
life. He was plain in his dress and simple in his habits. He was gener- 
ous with his means and the friend of the needy and unfortunate, and 
thousands of such in his adopted city dropped a tear over his bier as they 
viewed his manly form in death. He was a firm believer in the integrity 
of the American people, and during the political campaign of 1878 he 
took the strongest ground in favor of maintaining our national credit. 
He asserted that after mature reflection the American people would no 
more think of repudiating the nation's obligations than they would think 
of submitting to a dissolution of the Union itself, and he gave this fact 
as an illustration of the integrity of our people. He said, during the 
late war, while he was in Washington,. that he loaned to our soldiers sev- 
eral thousands of dollars, in small sums of from two to ten dollars to 
each, but that the whole amount was repaid to him with the exception of 
!i?10, and he was satisfied the poor men who owed him that small amount 
had given their lives for their country. 

Mr. Speaker, during the three short years that I have had the honor of a 
seat in this body, very many of our desks have been draped in mourning. 
Our legislative associates have fallen all around us. Not only the small 
in stature and the physically weak, but those who seemed to stand like 
mighty oaks in the forest have been stricken down by the icy hand of 
death. Surely " God moves in a mysterious way." 

When we separated and went to our homes last summer no one seemed 
more likely to return in the vigor of health and strength than he for 
whom we mourn to-day ; but as a great political contest in which he had 
taken an active part was about to close, he slept. His popularity was 
never so great as on the day of his death. He had become a recognized 
leader of his party, and his words gave strength and wisdom to an ag- 
gressive host. It will be hard to fill his place in the councils of the nation 
or in the leadership of his party. 

Mr. Speaker, I first became acquainted with Mr. Chandler in 1856, 
and he was then known by the familiar name of ''Old Zach," yet he was 
under forty-tkree years of age. For the last twelve years of his life I 



knew him iiitimatelj^ personally and politically, and our relations were 
very friendly. 

Sir, I feel that the nation has lost a patriotic statesman, his State its 
most illnstrious citizen, and he who speaks to yon a noble friend. But 
Zachariah Ciiandlku is gone. In the beantiful "Elmwood," on the 
banks of a mighty river, his friends laid him to rest, where his ashes will 
mingle with the dnst of otlier illustrious dead. . 

In common with the people of the State he served so well, and which 
honored him so greatly, and of the Nation whose rights, honor, and 
power he was snclian uncompromising defender, and of the thousands of 
personal friends who loved him we cast upon his bier the faithful tribute 
of affection and high regard, and so bid him a last farewell. 

Mr. IIOBESOK. From rock-bound coast and rugged mountain-side, 
from quiet farms and busy villages, and from her thronging centers of 
culture and of trade. New England pours her eager sons along the i)ath 
of every progress. From the elevating influence of her noble social sys- 
tem, from her clustering churches, from her teeming school-houses, from 
her free town-meetings, they carry the impress of their New England 
origin, education, and character into every field which human ambition 
dares to invade or human energy avails to conquer. What manner of 
men they are, who, born of Puritan stock and inheriting the energies and 
capacities of Puritan character, develop them in tlie free air and under 
the V)oundless horizon of the prairies, and amid tlie activity and vitality 
of pioneer and frontier life, we know and the world is beginning to real- 
ize. Carrying with them everywhere tlie mental and moral qualities of 
their New England origin, they develop these in scenes of more intense 
vitality and amid the struggles of larger elements of natural force. Thus 
is produced a race uniting in themselves aknost every condition of physi- 
cal, intellectual, and political development ; a race which makes a new 
and mighty element of power, challenging the attention and commanding 
the respect of the world. 

These reflections are suggested by a picture as remarkable as any in the 
history of our country, and which would not be possible in any other 
land or under any other conditions of government or political progress. 
Amid the crowd of emigrants who, in ithe earlier years of the present cen- 
tury, turned their backs upon home and birth place in New England to 
seek their fortunes in the growing West, were two young men, born in 
the little State of New Hampshire, who both finally settled in the beau- 
tiful city of Detroit, which, sitting* like a queen on the banks of its great 
highway, has for so many years commanded the trade and traffic of the 
Northwest. Their stern New England motlier had thrown off each in 
turn, as the northern eagle, soaring from her eyrie, shakes in mid-air her 
frightened fledgings from her back, to try for themselves their new-grown 
pinions in the upward flight and dare alone the splendor and tlie danger 
of the sky. The elder of the two was among the earlier settlers of the 
northern region, a soldier in its defense, and a pioneer in its develop- 
ment. Keaching at an early period conspicuous oflicial position, his 
strong character and great abilities swayed to his own views the princi- 
ples and actions of the people among whom he lived. Kepresenting in 
the Senate of the United States the great State of Michigan, he was for 
many years the political champion and leader of opinion in the North- 
west. 

The other, whose recent death is the occasion of these ceremonies, 
leaving at a later period the scenes of his youth, carried with him to his 
adopted State the same inborn qualities of energy and strength of char- 
acter, enriched by the same intense love of his country, but molded in a 
different school of political faith, and developed into different ideas of polit- 
ical policy, government, and progress. The one was the veteran cham- 
pion and representative of the older Democracy ; the other soon became 



a leader of the new Kepublicanism. In the struggle of parties which often 
convulsed the State they were ever representative antagonists, and, as 
one of the early fruits of the great political revolution which swept the 
Northwest, the younger was elected to the seat of the elder in the iSenate 
of the United States ; a position which he held until a very recent period, 
keeping in the hands of these two sons of New Hampshire, almost im- 
broken from the time of its organization, the senatorial power and in- 
fluence of the great State of Michigan. 

For many years antagonists in political strife, rivals for political oflice, 
and representatives of difiereut political policy, the great peril which 
tlu"eatened their common country brought them at last together, and 
uniting them in a common endeavor for its rescue and safety, engendered 
a personal friendship which was broken only by the death of the elder ; and 
to-day Lewis Cass and Zachakiah Chandler sleep almost side by side, 
beneath the soil of the great Commonwealth which they both loved so well, 
which was the scene of their political rivalry, and which honored each in 
his turn with its confidence and highest trust. Their graves, like those in 
the old cemetery of Portland, where lie still face to face, the commanders 
of the Enterprise and the Boxer, cover indeed the remains of rival cham- 
pions, but represent now, quiet after strife, equality after rivalry, and the 
utter subjection of all human power to His will *' whose mercy endureth 
forever." 

The Senate of which Mr. Cuandler became a member was as remark- 
able as any which has been known in the history of our country. The 
principles involved in its contests were those upon which depended the 
future character and direction of our Government and its influence for 
all time ; and the men to whom, in the providence of God, their illustra- 
tion was committed were worthy of their high trust. 

The political party to which he belonged was at tliat time greatly in the 
minority in the Senate, and many of its members had, like himself, been 
chosen for the qualities which mark the courage of high convictions, 
rather than for otticial or governmental experience, but, like him, they 
brought to the contest energy, activity and constancy, noble impulses of 
duty, the courage of lofty purposes, clear conception ot tue ends to be 
finally reached, and a fixed determination to dare, to do, and to suffer all 
that might be necessary for their accomplishment. 

It would not become the occasion to recount the many struggles, trials, 
and triumphs of that great contest ; it is suflicient now to say that ^li'. 
Chandler brought to the side of his party the most valuable and de- 
cisive qualities of mind and heart. Vigorous and energetic, yet thought- 
ful and astute ; of large views, yet with clear conceptions ; of liberal ideas, 
yet with fixed principles ; of high aspirations, yet with concentrated pur- 
poses — these were qualities born on New England soil indeed, but de- 
veloped on broader fields and amid the struggle of more elemental forces. 
A heart open as day to every manly sympathy : a steadfastness which did 
not yield, and a faitli which never faltered ; a simplicity which told of 
honor, and a courage which was born of freedom — these were qualities of 
heart which belonged to the man himself, which enshrined him in the 
love of friends, and took hold on the affections of the people. 

During the whole period of our acquaintance, my own association with 
Mr. Chandler was intimate, close, and confidential. Of liis senatorial 
career I need not speak further ; his record is written on tlie pages of his 
country's history. But of the closer and more confidential relations of 
Cabinet life and duty, in which we were associated together, I may bear 
special testimony. There, as everywhere, he exhibited the highest qual- 
ities of character and of heart ; lie was at once liberal to every person, 
just to every interest, and constant to every duty ; his every action was 
honor, and all his endeavors were for the right; and each day he grew more 
and more in the love and in the respect of his chief and of his associates. 



In the fullness of his strengtli, in the plenitude of his influence, in tlu; 
richest development of his fiictdties, clad witli tlie regalia of a nation s 
confidence, and covered with love as with a garment, he has fallen in tlie 
night, and the scenes which once knew him so well will know him no more 
forever. The successes to which lie contributed will endure for otliers,but 
the mind enriched and developed, the enlightened Iieart and the elevated 
spirit wliich achieved them are lost to his country and his friends, just as 
equipped and trained for severer struggles, the veteran turned to new 
conquests. Here we must pause ; we can go no further. Tliis is tlie 
'' be-all and the end-all here ;■" l)eyond is "the undiscovered country, from 
whose bourn no traveler" lias returned ; but here is the moral and a lesson : 
Life is far too short to realize to man more than the merest possibilities 
of his nature. The heart is full of aspirations, and the mind of possi- 
bilities which are not, which cannot be, realized in this world. At each 
step whicli we take forward we see nearer and clearer tiie far-off goals, 
toward wliich tlie spirit aspires, but which liuman ambition may never 
reacli, and, like the stars which shine down the long avenues of heaven, 
their endless line of " lights on lights beyond" tells like prophecy the im- 
mortal destiny of man. 

Mr. BUKROWS. Mr. Speaker, conscious as I am of the exalted place 
Senator Chandler held in the liearts of the people whom I have the 
honor in part to represent, I should feel that I had disregarded the wishes 
of my immediate constituents should I permit this occasion to pass with- 
out attempting to give expression to their higli appreciation of his char- 
acter and their profound sense of irreparable loss. 

I am not apprehensive, sir, that I sliall expose myself to the imputation 
of fulsome eulogy of the dead, or unjust detraction from the merits of 
the living, by declaring that no citizen of Michigan stood higher in the 
public regard, or could, by his death, have so disturbed the public repose, 
as the distinguished Senator whose sudden demise has given occasion for 
this solemn oliservance. That he occupied a foremost i)lace in the State's 
esteem is evidenced by the prolonged and illustrious service to which her 
partiality repeatedly called him ; that he is sincerely lamented is attested 
by the manifestations of public and private grief attending his imposing 
obsequies. 

The qualities of head and heart which thus endeared him to tlie people 
of Michigan were so conspicuous that they readily suggest themselves to 
every one familiar with his public career, for the prominent and distin- 
guished features of his character were so pronounced that they could be 
neither disguised nor misunderstood. 

Chiefest among these was his unchallenged honesty. Holding, for a 
quarter of a century, some of the most responsible positions in the gift 
of his State and the nation, whether participating in the legislatioii of 
the country or in tlie administration of its laws, his course was ever 
marked by the same unswerving integrity. Provoking, as he did, by his 
pronounced partisanship the fiercest assaults of his political antagonists, 
yet no adversary was ever bold enougli to attack his official integrity or 
impugn his personal honor. 

Nor would he brook dishonesty in others. It is said that when tlie 
Secretary of the Interior, becoming satisfied that a certain Inireau in that 
Department needed thorough renovation, he sent for the head of the 
division and directed the immediate dismissal of twelve of his most 
prominent subordinates. The chief of the bureau exi)ostulated with the 
Secretary, and finally declared that it would be impossible to transact the 
business of his department without their assistance. " Very well, sir," 
replied the Secretary, "then the business of your department will l»e 
suspended; for unless you make these removals by four o'clock this 
afternoon that Iminch of the public service will be closed." It is luuid- 



less to add that tlie orders of the Secretary were immediately executed 
and the subordinates discharged. 

If it be true that "an honest man is the noblest work of God," then 
Zaciiariah Chandler was one of nature's master-pieces. 

" He npver sold the right to serve the hour," 
Or paltered with eternal truth for power. 

Then, again, he was a man of matchless courage. Positive in his con- 
victions, he was bold in their advocacy. His course of action once deter- 
mined upon, supported by an approving conscience, no fear of popular 
disfavor or personal discomfiture could swerve him from his fixed pur- 
pose. No matter what the emergency, he was always equal to it. Where 
others doubted, he was confident ; where others faltered, he was immova- 
ble ; where others queried, he aftirmed. Whether engaged in preserving 
the nation's life or sustaining the national credit, whether in the Senate 
or in the Cabinet, he was the same fearless, intrepid leader. There was 
no error, however popular, he would not assail— no truth, however 
despised, he would not champion. As illustrative of his indomital)le 
courage in great emergencies, it is related of him that immediately after 
the battle of Bull Run, M'hen the Republic seemed tottering to its down- 
fall, he called upon the President to advise with him in relation to the 
exigencies of the hour. Mr. Lincoln was in despair, and met Mr. Chan- 
dler with the exclamation : '• The country is lost ! what shall we do V" 
'■'■ Do," responded the stalwart Senator, " call immediately for three hun- 
dred thousand volunteers." " But will the people respond V" questioned 
the Executive. " Yes, sir, if you were to make it a million." And it is 
said that he never quit the Executive Chamber until he bore the order 
from Mr. Lincoln to Secretary Stanton directing the summons. He was 
one of the few public men who, in the consideration of great questions, 
not only had positive convictions, but the moral courage to avow them, 
regardless alike of public opinion or personal consequences. It mattered 
not how popular a measure might be, or how much its advocacy might 
enhance the chances of party success. Senator Chandler never yielded 
his convictions for a momentary advantage. It mattered not how exalted 
any man might be in the public regard, if Senator Chandler believed 
him unworthy of the advancement he would not hesitate to assail him. 
And he never resorted to temporary expedients to achieve temporary suc- 
cess or allay popular clamor. 

Unpracticed he to fawn or seek for power 
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour. 

And, finally, he was faithful to every public duty andtrue to his friends. 
Treachery found no place in his character. He never betrayed a public 
trust or a personal friend. 

Fortunate will we be if it can be said of us when we are gone, as it can 
be truthfully declared of him : He was an lionest public servant, a fearless 
champion of the right, and a faithful friend. 

Mr. HAWLEY. I gladly take a few moments to manifest my sorrow 
for the death of Mr. Chandler, and my high respect for the many pro- 
nounced and praisewortliy elements of his character. It was a frank, 
brave, manly, strong nature. Whatever he loved he loved indeed ; when 
he liated at all he blazed. When he enlisted for a cause he gave it his soul 
and mind and body. He furnishes an eminent example among a multi- 
tude of men stalwart in all things— physical, mental, and moral— who 
fiave swarmed westward for a century and built up an empire. He car- 
ried with him the traditions of his New England home. His force and 
good judgment bore him upward in business ; his honesty secured him 
abundant trust and confidence ; his public spirit .compelled him to enter 
public life. He rejoiced in the inspirations of conflict, and had a righte- 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER. 51 

ous contempt for neutrals. " Some say there is a God ; some say there is 
no (loci. " Mr. Chandler would never have said, '' the truth lies between 
the two extremes." A man once i)rominent in American letters and 
politics, who failed to secure the success in public life to which his intel- 
lectual abilities apparently entitled him, described, as lessening his avail- 
ability for political leadershii), his irresistible tendency to see in the 
strongest light the arguments and sentiments of his opponents, and to 
permit liis vigor of action to be modified accordingly. Mr. Chandler 
never suffered through any such weakness. He Avas never in danger of 
being turned into a pillar of salt. 

AVilling enough to concede that his opponents might be sincere, he 
would rejoice in that sincerity as giving promise of a finer battle. It 
would never have occurred to him tiiat it ought to save them from defeat. 

His roughness and readiness provoked criticism. Men more scholarly, 
judicial, deliberate, and many-sided, and by reason thereof often less val- 
uable in times of stormy action, were apt to undervalue Mr. Chandler. 
But his advice and judgment were sound in the startling crises of war, 
and, while it was not a surprise to those who really knew him, it was a 
great satisfaction to see him 'become, in time of peace, a Secretary of the 
interior pointed to as a model of integrity and vigor. 

His opponents make a common mistake in deeming the sledge-hammer 
combatant lacking in the graces of friendship. He hated many things ; 
I do not think he hated any man. He had lived through enough of rude 
conflict in private and public to know that we may judge opinions and 
principles by the light we have, but should estimate men by the light they 
have. 

All the time he lived he was indeed alive man. And though he be dead 
the magnetism of his nature is here to-day, and will be felt for generations. 

Mr. DUNNELL. Mr. Speaker : The late Senator Chandler attained 
political eminence and secured the admiration of the American people 
because he had and exhibited in action some of the best traits of an at- 
tractive human character. He had integrity, honesty, patriotism, bold- 
ness, and moral bravery. These qualities were the pillars upon which, 
in a large degree, rested his national fame. They gave him success in 
each great theater of his life. 

When his remains awaited burial in the city of Detroit, his fellow-citi- 
zens, in large numbers and irrespective of party, in their unanimously 
adopted resolutions, made conspicuous these shining characteristics. 
His honesty, his uprightness, his uncorruptedness in the transactions of 
life were in daily phiy, and came to be the imiversally conceded qualities 
of the man. 

This animating and controlling principle greatly augmented, without 
doubt, the force of those other traits to which reference has been made. 
He did not yield to the temptations which come to men willing to acquire 
gain and place by the use of deceptive and otherwise unworthy methods. 
As he hated fraud, he demanded a clean record, a full exposure of all the 
motives which shaped and impelled the actions of men. His denuncia- 
tions of men who in action were not what their professions would make 
them, were signally severe. For such men, he had no excuses. If he was 
intolerant, his honesty made him so. There was no sham in this great 
distinguishing element in his character. It was firmly rooted and un- 
ceasingly operative. It did not leave him when he passed from private 
into public life. During his eighteen years of service in the Senate of 
the United States, much of it opening paths to personal profit, which 
touched and hurt other men, he made such a record for honesty, in its 
largest signification, that it left in the background and to be forgotten 
forever whatever of faults, if any, may have touched his personal charac- 
ter. 



52 ZACIIARIAII CHANDLER. 

After a short retirement from the Senate, he became tlie Secretary of 
the Interior. He was exempt from assaults at no period in his political 
career. They were renewed when lie returned to Washington to assume 
the duties of an executive office and tjike his place in the Cabinet of Pres- 
ident Grant. These attacks, however, never reached his integrity. If 
they had been made with that view, lie could have used the words of 
Shakespeare and said : 

There is no terror in yonr threats ; 
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty, 
That they pass by m<- as the idle wind, 
Which I resppi't not. 

If the history of the lamented Senator be written, no pages in it will be 
brighter or more illustrative of the man than those which shall set forth 
the thorough and needed reforms which he wrought in the Department 
of the Government over Avhich he presided. Civil service with liim had 
an honest meaning. It must have its illustration in the full labor of men 
loyal to the Government and competent to do the work assigned them. 
He hated civil-service rules, because in their practical operation they were 
too often a cheat. Not long had he served in this new capacity before 
there came from every quarter the free and hearty acknowledgment that 
he possessed executive and administrative abilities of a high order. 

The congressional legislation of lSo4 brought the subject of our eulogies 
from his comparative obscurity and led the way to his long and eventful 
public career. The Republican party was born of tliat legislation. In 
the formation of the party he took q,n early and conspicuous part. In af- 
ter years, and indeed until his death, he was in it a wise and sagaciotis 
adviser and supporter. His consummate ability in party organization 
kept him for many years at the head of the National Republican Com- 
mittee. 

The repeal of the Missouri compromise he regarded as a blow aimed at 
the life of the nation. This act aroused into the intensest activity his 
sublime love for the Union. From this hour his voice was lieard. The 
directness and severity with which he spoke of measures which he deemed 
hostile to the public good, may be charged to his ardent love of coun- 
try. He was an extreme partisan because he sincerely believed his party 
alone could save and best serve the Republic. He did not think it possi- 
ble to save it by any other political organization or agency. His uncom- 
promising devotion to the Union would not suffer him to consider for an 
hour any terms of compromise or conciliation. The sincerity and hon- 
esty of his motives were never questioned by those who knew him. His 
vast labors for the Government during the war, and the soldiers who were 
standing against its enemies, were inspired by a deep and generous patri- 
otism. No man will do him justice who does not credit to it all he did 
and sacrificed for it when its life was in peril. His words were indeed 
barbed, but his nature would not suffer the coinage of any other. 

I have said, Mr. Speaker, that one of tlie marked traits in the Senator's 
character was his boldness. His honesty made it impossible for him to 
evade or conceal. He did not hesitate at any time or in any place to ut- 
ter his convictions or use right names. He spoke as he felt. Words 
with him were put to their legitimate use. Frankness marked the man 
and was the offspring of his honesty. He said what he thought the occa- 
sion required. It would not have been possible for him to do less and be 
himself. He was rugged in conviction and in utterance. His speeches 
in the Senate during the extra session of last year, were charged with the 
severest denunciations, for they came of the views which he had enter- 
tained concerning the war and its chief actors. He could not have made 
them otherwise. 

It may be said that the Senator, though sincere, was extreme and 
daring, yet such a man is safer in the councils of a nation than a timid 



ZACIIARIAII CHANDLER. 



53 



man, for the latter is quite certain to surrender his wiiole cause when 
some crisis is reached and when tiie liiifliest order of courage is the stern 
necessity of the hour. The hrave man will never deceive eitlier friend 
or foe. 

The last speeches of Senator Ciiandlkr in the Senate hronght him in- 
vitations to address the people in many States of the Union. He spoke 
luany times in Oliio, Maine, Massachusetts, Xew York, Wisconsin, and 
Illinois durintr the months of August, Septemher, and October. Vast 
crowds greeted him wlierever he spoke. Tlie masses loved Iiis directness 
of speech. They lionored him for what he was and what he said. Fan- 
euil Hall resounded with the loud and long applause which followed his 
words. His reception in every place was an ovation. 

Turning his face homeward, lie reached the city of Chicago on the 81st 
of October. Here, when the echoes of his last eloquent appeal to the 
tliousands who here so enthusiastically heard him, had scarcely died away, 
the spirit of the liold Senator, tlie incorruptible statesman and tlie earnest 
patriot, took its flight. Here ended a life grandly useful and heroic. This 
generation cannot forget its greatness, and coming generations will ad- 
mire its singular devotion to the liepublic. 

Mr. STONE. Mr. Si)eaker, in the death of Zaciiakiaii Chandler a 
great political party has lost one of its recognized leaders, and tlie nation 
one of her most distinguished sons. His life and acts have been inter- 
woven with the history and progress of the State of Michigan and of this 
nation during the last twenty-five years. 

The life of Senator Chandler adds another name to that long list of 
men in the country who, by dint of persevering application and energy, 
liave raised themselves from the lower ranks of industry to eminent po- 
sitions of usefulness and influence in the nation. The presidential chair 
and the Halls of Congress have contained many such self-raised men — 
fitting representatives of the industrial character of the American jieople 
— and it is to the credit of our institutions that such men have received 
due recognition and honor at tlie liands of the people. 

Mr. Chandler's education was limited to that of the common schools 
and an academy of his native State, New Hampshire. 

In 1838, at the age of twenty years, he removed to the city of Detroit, 
and soon after engaged in the mercantile business, in which he was very 
successful. 

His public life began by his election to tlie ofiice of mayor of his adopted 
city in the year 1851. He was in 18o2 brought prominently before the 
l)eople of Michigan as the Whig candidate for governor. Although tlie 
contest was a hoiieless one he made a spirited and energetic canvass, and 
established a prestige in the State which lie ever afterwards enjoyed. 
From this time to the day of his death ^Ir. Chandler took an active 
interest in the politics of his adopted State and the nation. In the winter 
of 1856-'57 he was elected to the United States Senate, to succeed Lewis 
Cass, being the first Republican Senator from Micliigan. 

In the Senate he took hold of his work with the same energy and direct- 
ness that had characterized him as a successful merchant and business 
man. He saw tlie coming greatness of the Northwest and (levoted him- 
self chiefly to the commerce and industries of the lake region, becoming 
so thoroughly acijuainted with the sidiject that he was soon consitlered 
an authority on all questions touching the interests or development of 
that part of the country. 

He especially demanded for the Northwest a place on the Committee 
on Commerce in the Senate, a committee of which he was afterward 
chairman for many years. It is said that the first liill he ever jiresented 
was one to iinin'ove the Saint Clair Flats by deepening Ihe channel over 
them. This bill, and his next to deepen Saint Mary \s River, lie pushed 



with that untiring energy which marked his course afterward in such 
matters. During the debate in the Senate on tlie Saint Clair hill Mr. 
Chandler said : " I want to see who is friendly to tlie great Northwest 
and who is not ; for we are about making our last prayer here. The time 
is not far distant when, iiistead of coming here and begging for our rights, 
we shall extend our hands and take the blessing. After 1860 we shall not 
be here as beggars." 

Time will not permit us on this occasion to follow him minutely in his 
successful career in the Senate. Long identified with the interests and 
prosperity of Michigan, no man has accomplished more for her material 
interests than Mr. Chandleh. Outside of political and party lines he 
has been of great service to the State, and his death is there considered 
a great calamity. He will fill an honorable page in the history of his 
country's struggles and triumph over human slavery. He hated oppres- 
sion wherever he found it, and counted no consequence in denouncing 
the oppressor. 

Senator Chandler was a man of decided convictions and utterances. 
His boldness and frankness of speech often led to a misconception of liis 
character, and made the impression that he was tyrannical and vindictive. 
His nature was eminently genial, tender, and sympathetic. He felt keenly 
the wrongs of others, and was never more outspoken than when defend- 
ing the cause of the weak and ojtpressed. 

Pending rebellion, lie was loyal, hopeful, helpful, and a military division 
in himselfj to helj) Lincoln, Grant, and Stanton. He was devoted to the 
Union in its hour of i)eril. His earnest, persevering labors amid the 
darkest days of its trial and difticnlty, his courage and steadfastness in 
the pursuit of his noble aims and purposes in the interest of the nation, 
were no less lieroic of their kind than the bravery and devotion of the 
soldier whose duty and whose ])ride it was heroically to defend it upon the 
battle-field. Ko himian being can accurately say how much of our final 
victory during the war and reconstruction was vitally and indisputably 
ministered by Zachariaii Chandler. He was absolutely invincilile 
and fearless. I wish to pay a brief tribute to the fearless independence 
of his character, to his integrity, his honest adlierence to tlie principles 
which he believed to be right, to the rugged force of his talents ; all of 
which made him an important element in the affairs of the nation during 
the last quarter of a century. Few men in this counti-y ever wielded a 
stronger political influence than Senator Chandler. He Avas a man of 
firm conviction, and, though an ardent i^artisan, was just. His charac- 
ter was unimpeacliable. Throughout his course of public life not even 
his bitterest opponents ever had aught to say against his honesty. 

Few men have taken such a firm, deep hold on the confidence and regard 
of the country. His sturdy patriotism and his uncompromising loyalty 
carried and captivated the popular lieart. He had something in his com- 
position that compelled respect and confidence from the people. One of 
Napoleon 's favorite maxims was, '■'■ The truest wisdom is a resolute deter- 
mination." If it is a blessing to be possessed of a stout heart, tlien 
Senator Cil\ndler was eminently blessed. The people of Michigan, 
and all who knew him, had unbounded confidence in the will-power and 
energy of "01dZach,"as he was familiarly called at home. I believe 
it is true that it is not the men of genius who move the world, and take 
the lead in it, but men of steadfastness and invincible determination. 

Mr. Chandler was strong with the people because he was conspicu- 
ously one of the people, moved by their honest impulses, filled with their 
strong sense, and sharing their earnest convictions. There was no pre- 
tense or false show about him. He was brave, true, manly, square, and 
direct, and was never afraid to call things by their right names. He made 
no claim to polisli or the art of rhetoric. He was a strong man, ratlier 
than a scholarly one ; a man of great common sense ; a practical rather 



ZACIIARIAII CHANDLER. 



55 



than a brilliant statesman. Ilis i)ractical saj^acity, his resolute will, and 
great courage made him a greater force than many of finer i)olish and 
iai'ger acquirements. He was a natural leader, and no man in our history 
as a State ever had a more faitliful following. He leaves a gap which it 
will be ditricult to fill. Upon the nation which honored liim, and the 
State which loved him, the news of his death fell with great suddenness 
and the force of an awful shock. But he could not have chosen a better 
time to die had he been given the power of choice, for he went in the 
zenith of his fame and usefulness— in the midst of activity and labor, 
and with the harness on. His last public utterances were for an honest 
government and an undivided nation. 

A widespread and public sorrow on the announcement of his death 
attested the profound sense of the loss which the State of Michigan and 
the wiiole country sustained. Former political animosities were for- 
gotten, and all, without distinction of i)olitics, creed, or nativity, seemed 
to feel that the State and nation had lost a strong pillar. 

Let us imitate his virtues and cherish his memory. 

Mr. KETFER. Mr. Speaker, if we were to call the roll of the dead who 
have fallen from the ranks of tliose who have mustered in this our coun- 
try's Capitol. Ave should hear tlie names of many historic souls familiar 
to the ears of the people of all lands, and not among the least of those 
would be found the name of hini on whose account we meet here to-day 
to pay a last tribute of res))ect. 

My personal relations with the late Senator Zaciiariaii Chandler 
were limited to occasional and incidental meetings during the last two 
years of his life. To those who knew him well and intimately during the 
many years of his long, eventful, and useful life it must he left to speak 
of him in his social and family relations. But his public life and acts 
belong to the whole country ; and in so far as he was the instrument of 
good to mankind ; in so far as his life was exemi)lary and worthy of imi- 
tation ; in so far as he w^as a type of American manhood and an honor to 
his country and race, he belongs to history. 

While his life and public services may not have been singularly grand, 
they were transcendently great. It has often been said, with a view of 
detracting from individual greatness, that men only become great because 
they have lived and been called on to grapple with great events. It is not 
to be denied that great occasions develop great intellects and great men. 
It is also true that men who have high and responsible pul)lic duties cast on 
them, as a rule, meet and discliarge tliem, often to the surprise of their 
friends, with singular faithfulness and ability. But in the long and 
eventful period in ourcountry'shistory through which the lamented Sen- 
ator lived many strong men faltered, hesitated, and fell. 

The differences in men are rarely to be measured by their difference in 
natural and purely intellectual endowments ; they consist more com- 
monly in the differences in zeal, energy— physical energy— perseverance, 
devotion to duty, to friends and country, pride of success, love of honor, 
self-respect, high resolve, dauntless spirit, and, above all, a desire to do 
good. Senator Chandler ])0ssessed most if not all of these endow- 
ments, and more largely than most of the great and good men of the 
world. 

If I were compelled to name the one leading characteristic which he 
was endowed with in a higher degree than another, and which ruled him 
in private and imblic affairs throughout his useful life, I shordd say it 
was heroism. Tliough not a warrior in the period of war, his whole life 
was a heroic one. Heroes are not found alone in the fiery furnace of war ; 
they are common to the paths of peace. He possessed true heroism, 
" the self-devotion of genius manifesting itself in action." He was not 
of that kind of heroism denoting fearlessness of danger, passive courage, 



ability to be;ir iij) iiiuler trials amid daiiffers and sufferings ; nor was it 
only that fortitude. l)ravery. and valor which is essential to those wlio go 
fovtli to conflicts with living opponents in personal mortal combat as 
duellists or in battle ; it Avas made np of that intrepidity and courage 
Avbich shriidvs not in the presence of appalling dangers. Senator Cii and- 
LF.K was unpretentious, and as a husband, father, and friend was kind, 
]iatronizing, and gentle ; but when stormy times came his brow seemed to 
darken, and that great body of his. whicli ai^jieared to the beholder to be 
one of the motive forces of creation, strode fearlessly to the front, and 
there by common consent held sway until all danger was passed. 

Many courageous men, not truly hemic, falter and fail to enter the 
li^-ts when a conflict is imminent. Not so the deceased Senator. He 
Av:is a leader when the times or occasions demanded true valor. It is in 
the lead where men fall or are saci'ificed. The leaders in charging a foe 
are the most conspicuous marks, and they are the first to receive the 
manly fire of bold enemies and often the cowardly arrows of hiding foes 
in the I'ear, not unfrequently springing from the bow of envy or jeal- 
ousy. 

He escaped in a singular degree, and died in old age with his armor on. 
In a successful civil as in a successful military life — and in the eyes of 
an often undiscriminating public success in either is the only test of true 
greatness— it is easier to be led to scenes wliere honor and glory are won 
than to be one of tlie few who lead there. 

In the bloody conflicts of war the ])ercentage of those Avho cannot, if 
well commanded, meet the actual conflict of battle with a good show of 
courage is very small indeed, yet the large mass of men are i>hysical 
cowards. Mr. Chandler had no element of cowardice in him. He was 
always a natural leader. 

As a business man he sought out a comparatively new State and at- 
tained siiccess by foresight, energy, and enterprise. He left a large for- 
tune. This same foresight, energy, and enterprise he carried with hira 
throughout his public life. He was devoted to his friends and magnani- 
mous to his foes, but not to the latter until he was sure they were con- 
quered. 

As a i)olitical leader he was known to lie a violent partisan. Tliis came 
from his having no half-Avay convictions of duty and right. When he had 
work to do he struck heavy blows. He did not lightly ta]) a nail on tlie head 
to start it on its course, but drove it home at a single blow. He was said 
to be uncompromising in his character. This was unjust to him, save in 
all matters where his country or princii)le was involved. He was honest, 
and integrity in private and public affairs was a i)ole-star for his guidance. 
He may have erred, and doubtless did, in many things. It is only human 
to err. His inii)etuous and fiery nature may have sometimes caused liim 
to go astray, but he was willing to make amends for any wrong he had 
done to another when in his power. 

Like all ])ositive men who come prominently u])on the stage of life, he 
had not friends alone, but violent enemies. But like a giant oak that 
withstands the torjiadoes as well as the gentler winds for a century, and 
grows stronger and firmer in its fiber. Senator Chandler grew in mental 
and moral stature by reason of the violence of his foes. He, like the oak, 
could not have fhnirished alone in the sunshine of life. He needed, if he 
did not deserve, its stormy days to i»rei)are him for his high destiny. It 
lias been said by another" who had to bear more than seemed to be his 
sliare of violent opposition, "that he could as little afford to spare his 
enemies as his friends." They fitted and (lualified him foi- better and 
nobler duties. Mr. Chandler's body and mind were alike of the rugged, 
not to say rougli. cast. 

His light, tliough not such as would be called in high literary circles 
brilliant, yet it burned fiercely, reaching on occasions a white heat, in the 



presence of whicli his opponents witliered. In deliate lie was fearlessly 
ontsitoken. ITe could take as well as give liei-cnlean blows. Better men 
may have lived than plain old Zachakiaii CiiANDLEii.but none excelled 
him in love of country or of his fellow-men. For suliterfuge and dodg- 
inf; he had a brave man's scorn. He always spoke his mind and acted 
boldly up to his convictions. He was for war when jieace no lonfjer 
seemed possible. As early as 1860 he gave it as his opinion that " a lit- 
tle blood-letting would be good for the body-politic." He was then for 
war, and in the national halls of legislation he gave his voice and votes 
for its rigorous ])rose('ution. 

He believed in the fiat of the emancipation which made plain Abe 
Lincoln's name immortal. It has been said that he was indiscreet, bois- 
terous, and headstrong. So far as this may have been true it was because 
he had in great affairs absolutely no nonsense about him. As a ])olitical 
enemy of his has said. " He went straight for the thing in sight, and 
generally came off with it." 

His warm and generous nature wotfid not allow him to betray a friend 
or thrust an enemy in the back. If throughout his whole career his life 
was not one in all res))ects to be imitated by the young men of the coun- 
try, it cannot be said that he corru{)ted them. 

It was my fortune to meet him for a day near the close of his life. He 
was then on duty for a cause in which his heart and soul were enlisted, 
and in that cause he died. He had then entered upon his last cam])aign. 
It was bounded by no State lines. He addressed the people in Ohio on 
the political Issues which he deemed vital to them ; he tlew from place to 
place rapidly, and was gone, and the " Pilking lightninii " told us that he 
was in the distant State of Massachusetts, and thundering his ]>lain but 
convincing speech in Fanueil Hall to the learned men of Boston. We 
heard of him elsewhere in that State and in the State of New York ; then 
came the news that he was in the far Northwest — the State of Wiscon- 
sin — pouring livid, convincing arguments out to her i>eople. The morn- 
ing ])apers announced that he was to address the assembled multitudes 
in that magic, wondrous city of Chicago on the night of October 31, 1879. 

The early i>apers on the next day gave us his speech, but with it came 
the startling announcement— Zacii. Chandler is dead ! Strong men 
and women mourned. His friends and foes stood dazed in the presence 
of the sad tidings. They did not know how to contemplate him from 
the stand-i)oint of death. He died as a hero might wish to die— like a 
plumed knight "booted and spurred." It is fitting that here in these 
halls that knew him so long Ave should pay him a last tribute and shed 
copious tears to his memory. As we contemplate him dead — in his final 
chamber of repose— in the poet's language we may truthfully say — 

Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, 

Here grow no damned prudges ; here are no stoi ms, 

No noise, but silence and eternal sleep. 



Mr. CONGER. Mr. Speaker, the name and fame of Z aciiariaii Chan- 
dler, of Michigan, needs no heralding in this House, in this Congress, 
in this nation. None is more familiar to the American people; none 
ever more Iionored by the citizens of his owii State. 

Those of us who speak of him to-day bring our loving though mourn- 
ful tribute to his memory as we ]iay the last ofilcial honors to one who 
served so long and so well in the Congress of the nation. 

I may not here recall the long years of my jiersonal friendship and re- 
gard, nor shall I venture to give expression to the emotions which crowd 
upon me as I remember the obligations of friendship, of kindness and 
encouragement which have assisted my public labors and been so pleas- 
ant in my private life. 



58 ZACIIARIAH CHANDLER. 

'Not do I desiji^n to ixive even a sketch of the private or public life of 
the distinguished statesman and ])atriot whose untimely death we deplore. 

Others, here and elsewhere, will hetter perform that sacred duty, and 
gather together the abundant material furnished by three-score years of 
an eventful life to instruct, enlighten, and gratify the people whom he 
served so long and so well. 

If I am permitted to refer to some scenes and events of his life, not so 
likely to be mentioned l)y others— to allude to some remembrances of 
circumstances which he liimself in private conversation has spoken as 
influencing his life and forming his character, I shall ])erhaps furnish 
some little aid to those who desire to know the peculiarities of his life 
and analyze the motives of his action. 

Mr. Chandlkr was born December 10, 1813, in the time of our second 
national struggle, and the earliest impressions of his childhood and the 
first lessons around the ISTew England fireside Avere colored by the intense 
jKitriotism which frontier life and border warfare had imparted to those 
who had been alike ready to fight the other States in behalf of the Hamp- 
shire grants and the rest of the world in behalf of the rights of the nation. 

At the age of twenty he left the granite hills and the beautiful valleys 
of his native State to find a field of labor and the chances of fortune in 
the then far West. He brought little with him l)ut energy, resolution, 
and that Puritan integiity natural to his race and unsullied through 
his life. 

In the first flush of youth, hopeful, ambitious, undisciplined, he left 
the land of steady habits, settled customs, and a homogeneous people, to 
dwell in a region and among a people as unlike his own as could be found 
on the continent. 

Michigan from 1612 to 1760 had been a part of Kew France, ruled, un- 
der French laws, by French governors, and in all respects a French peo- 
ple ; from 1760 till 1787 under English governors and English laws ; and 
till 1835 under various territorial governments. 

In 1883 the whole population, French, English, and American, was 
about sixty thousand, and Detroit, the chief city and capital, less than 
ten thousand. To such a territory and city in 1833, at the age of twenty 
years, came ZAcnARiAii Chandler to dwell among that mixed people 
thenceforward while he should live on earth. 

I should love to linger over this transition period of his life, among the 
scenes and incidents and personages and events that molded and fashioned 
that tall, awkward, wondering, resolute Wliite Mountain boy — then and 
before and afterward and always called Zach— into the merchant prince, 
the rich capitalist, the shrewd politician, the successful statesman, the 
unswerving patriot, and, better and nobler than all, the fearless advocate 
and bold defender of all the free institutions of his native land and of the 
rights and liberties of all the dwellers therein. 

I would be gratified if I might embody in this grateful tribute to the 
memory of a friend with whom I have been familiar for more than a third 
of a century some record of his hopes and aml)itions, his thoughts and 
reflections, his plans and struggles, from the hour when he stood a stran- 
ger in that old-fashioned City of the Straits till that evening when, amid 
the shouts and applause of many thousand citizens of a wonderful city 
beyond the lakes, unnamed and unknown in those days of his early man- 
hood, he retired weary and secretly stricken to his chamber, and, when, 
alone — 

Nor wife, nor child, 
Nor one of all his myriad friends, 
To bid his parting soul farewell, 

his great spirit quit the familiar scenes of earth, and through the up- 
per air, still vibrating with the applause of those who had just listened 






ZACHARIAII CHANDLER. 59 

to his last thrilling words, sought rest in the unknown realms of immor- 
tal life ! 

Mr. Speaker, we have all an inward consciousness that '■'■time and place 
and rirr»»i.st'7H''e" are Init the common names of those mysterious i)owers 
and influences and agencies that rule within and around us, to mold and 
fashion our mortal life ; that, under the Divine economy, our nature, 
ever struggling with powers and ])rincii)alities, with things seen and un- 
seen, with right and wrong, witli truth and error, with justice and opi)res- 
sion, is constantly and imperceptibly changed and fashioned and molded 
by all our earthly associations. 

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we w^ill. 

In 1833, when this youthful wanderer made his home in Detroit, all was 
strange, and new, and wonderful. The quaint old city— the French haU- 
tans, gay, vivacious, exclusive : the old English families, proud, phleg- 
matic, reserved, not yet reconciled to tlieir lost dominion; the remnants of 
Indian trilies whose fathers, if they did not themselves, rememV)ered Pon- 
tiac, and Bloody Run, and Brownstown, and Tecumseh, and Hull's sur- 
render, and the Thames, and who traversed the trails and portages, and 
floated on the waters, and traveled over lands once all their oAvn, and who 
lingered continually about their favorite old home on the straits ; hunt- 
ers and trappers and fishermen gathered there ; voyagenrs who knew every 
coa.st and every portage to "far-off Athabasca" crowded the shores and 
loitered around in sad indolence as they heard the rushing sound of steam 
and saw the mysterious vessels that, without sail or paddle, usurped their 
dominion and occupation ; sailors were there who had fought with PeiTy 
on the waters below ; fur-traders who had brought thitlier their treasures 
from unknown mountains and plains ; immigrants gathering from all the 
world ; merchants from the interior and far-off West. But time would 
fail to give more than a passing glance at the scenes and associations into 
which our adventurer was plunged and amidst which his character was to 
Ije formed, his energy to be tested, his triumph to be gained. 

Amid such scenes he must, of course, be earnest, resolute, almost ag- 
gressive. He must be inquiring, tlioughtful, decided. He must be just 
and honorable in all his intercourse with this varied and peculiar popula- 
tion. He must be fearless and uncringing with the supercilious and 
haughty, affaljle and cordial with his equals and friends, and bold in de- 
fense of the weak, else he would long since have gone down among the 
forgotten and unknown. 

And such indeed were the elements of his character, predominating 
overall faults and foil)les, illustrating many peculiarities, offensive to his 
opponents and sometimes incomprehensible to his friends. 

I liave not the time, on this occasion, to illustrate the different phases 
of his character from actual events in his life. His honesty and personal 
integrity have never l)een assailed or questioned. 

Never in the varied transactions of mercantile or commercial life has 
his good name been tarnished. In the fever heat of political warfare no 
charge of corru))tion has pointed to him. 

There was a time in the late ]iolitical contest when his pride and ambi- 
tion and the crowning wisli of his life looked to a return to his long- 
honored place in the Senate, when he was told secretly by an old and 
trusted friend that if he would give his influence to aid in securing a 
certain political appointment to a friend of one who could secure the 
result he could be elected. With an emphatic gesture, he replied: "I 
liave lived among the people of Michigan for almost half a century an 
honest man, and I will never secure my election even by a promise which 
at another time I might be willing to make voluntarily." 



60 ZACHARIAII CHANDLER. 



Equally characteristic of the man was his celebrated letter to the gov- 
ernor of his State, so much criticised, so much approved — the blood- 
letting letter, so-called. 

He saw treason spreading through the land, poisoning the fountains of 
justice, invading the halls of legislation, threatening the free institutions 
of the country, selfish, unreasoning, inexorable, gathering forces for the 
conflict, already arming for tlie strife. 

What should he. the watchman of the tower, say to his people ? Let 
the Union be destroyed ? Let the Constitution be shattered? Surrender 
ignobly the inheritance to treason and traitors ? No. War, if it must 
come, hlood and life, if necessary, wealth and propertii and comfort and long 
years of struggle", but this Union must and shall be preserved. No sur- 
render to traitors ! No yielding to timidity ! No endurance of vacilla- 
tion, either in court or camp ! 

He spared neither high nor low, neither the head of the Army nor the 
sul^altern in the field. He had the great courage to attack alone the man- 
agement of the campaign and to change commanders. The history of the 
labors through the war will never be written. They are only partially 
known to the country, and not fully even to his friends. 

When the war was over he demanded the fruits of victory — submission 
to the Grovernment, freedom in spirit and in fact to the enfranchised ; 
absolute i^rotection to the citizens in all legal and political rights wherever 
the flag floats ; recognition of the fidelity and valor of Union soldiers ; 
confidence and support to the Union men of the South ; suppression of 
violence and anarchy and kukluxism ; no recognition or payment of rebel 
claims for losses in the war. 

On these and like subjects he could not be silent. He was not vindic- 
tive. He would not yield to injustice ; but, looking upon the shattered 
hearth-stones, the maimed and suifering soldier, and the innumerable 
graves of patriot citizens, he demanded the residts of victory, no more, 
no less, and that the great struggle should close the contest, once and 
forever. 

Mr. Speaker, the record of his life and character will be more fully made 
up by abler hands than mine. This time and place permit but a glance 
at a few of the characteristics of the man. I can but feebly echo the 
voice of ten thousand citizens of our mourning State in any expression 
of admiration for our departed statesman — of sorrow for his untimely 
death. In Michigan a million and a half of i)eople are mourners. No 
party lines divide our citizens as we lay the tribute of respect ujion his 
tomb. No citizen has died more universally known ; none been attended 
to his last resting-place with more abounding sadness. The thousands 
who thronged the streets on the day of his funeral and endured the tem- 
pestuous winter storm for hours unmoved, as the long cortege moved 
" with slow funereal tread " to his final resting-place, where but the rep- 
resentatives of millions throughout our land who cried as of old, '' Know 
ye not that a great man hath fallen in Israel this day ?" 

Mr. BRIGGS. Mr. Speaker, Zaciiariaii Ciiandlkr was born in the 
district I have the honor to represent. Among my constituents are the 
friends and associates of his early life. His birthplace, in the beautiful 
valley of the Merrimac, is only a short distance from my own home. 
There his boyhood was spent, and there he came forth to fame and for- 
tune. His boyhood gave promise of the great character which his man- 
hood fulfilled. From very humble beginnings, l)y his own energy and 
force of character, he worked his way to the front rank of the statesmen 
of his country. 

He adds another and a most honoraljle name to the bright list of New 
Hampshire's illustrious sons. Proudly we bear the honor of his birtli, 
and while his adopted State may be first, let New Hampshire be next at 
the memorial altar. 



The ( ri-anite State believes in men like Senator Chandler. We believe 
in a statesmanship of i)ositive ideas. Not only do we honor his political 
principles, but from his very nature we loved the man— for his open, 
generous, philanthropic nature ; always exercising his great aggressive 
vigor against the wrong, always taking the part of the weak and oppressed. 

An outline of his busy and eventful life has already been given by those 
wlio have preceded me, and I purpose only to offer a few suggestions on 
the character of the man whom we have met this day to honor. Of his 
abilities there can he but one opinion. All the requisites of a great 
executive he certainly possessed— decision, method, energy, self-reliance. 
He was not merely a great executive ; to his capacity as such was added 
that broader vision, that greater originality, in short,^tliat statesmanship 
wliich belongs to great administrators. The executive need evolve only 
methods, the administrative measures. Tried by any theory, or meas- 
ured by his own great success. Senator Chandler's abilities lifted him 
to tlie dignity of a great administrator. This might rest alone upon his 
business success ; it might rest upon his management of the Interior 
I)ei)artment for the brief period he was at its head ; it might rest upon 
his Republican leadership of the last twenty years, a leadership that was 
more and more acknowledged until at his death it almost approached 
supremacy. Tliis capacity for administration was shown in all tliese 
relations, and even in his legislative career it was this faculty wliich 
comes oftenest to the front. He possessed the (lualities of a legislator 
of no mean or secondary order ; he was invaluable in the committee, but 
he was not the less of consequence upon the lloor of the Senate. 

Trace the history of this country through a long and most memorable 
period, and constantly as you may see his hand in its measures you as 
constantly hear his voice in its debates. He was bold and aggressive ; 
endowed by nature with that clearness of logic, that directness, intensity, 
and vigor of statement that rendered him no " unknown quantity" in 
del)ate. Any attempted analysis of his character seems superfluous, his 
every quality is so well known to the world. He has been prominently 
before the nation for a quarter of a century— an era measured by its great 
achievements, unparalleled in the annals of mankind ; all the while closely 
identified with the legislation of his country and with the leadership of a 
great i)arty which has done more for human liberty than any other known 
to history. 

The one particular characteristic of the man Avas his strength. Other 
men were more finished. We have many finished men, but few really 
strong ones. He was a man Avhose every thought was strength, and witii 
whom to think Avas to do. Strength of conviction, strength of purpose, 
strength of methods, strengtii of statement — these were his in a supreme 
degree. History will never lose the impress of his character. 

He has been accused of a too zealous partisanship, but there is no war- 
rant for this charge. True he was no " half-and-half ;" there was no 
duplicity, no dissimulation in his composition. If he believed at all, it 
was with his whole great heart ; and with his intensity of conviction he 
may have been wont to regard success as a duty ; but his enemies, if such 
he had, will not accuse him of unworthy and dishonorable means. 

His methods were bold, as they were vigorous. He struck hard, but he 
struck openly. Indeed his whole nature precludes suspicion. There 
were no dark or secret traits in his character. He did everything openly 
and aliove-board, and despised treachery, cant and hypocrisy as only he 
had the scorn to despise them. AV^ith all his tremendous earnestness, he 
was yet a chivalrous and generous antagonist ; generous as he was in all 
the relations of life. 

His character was of the kind to which generosity constitutionally 
belonged, for his faults were only those which belong to the warmest 
natures. 



Altogether he was one of those men who make history, and stamp their 
impress upon the age in which they live ; a man whose fame is still des- 
tined to increase like that of every true statesman whose work is grounded 
in conviction. 

History will rank him among the most eminent of those whose names 
are inseparably associated witli the cause of human rights. 

Time has already vindicated his prescient radicalism, and posterity will 
place him with the heralds who have gone before their fellows to proclaim 
a better day. 

In the official career of Senator Chandler, from the beginning to the 
close of his public life, we have a realization of the poet's earnest prayer 
when he sang : 

God give us men ; a tiiriH like this demands 

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands ; 

Men whom the lust of offlce does not kiU ; 

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; 

Men who have honor ; men who will not lie ; 

Men who can stand before a demagogue 

And damn his treacherous flattering without winking; 

Tall nien, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 

In public duty and in private thniking. 

Mr. BARBER. Mr. Speaker, it did not occur to me that I should take 
part in these proceedings until the resolutions of the Senate were read in 
this Hall this afternoon. I rise now from a sense of duty. I should do 
injustice to my own feelings, and I am sure to the feelings of a very large 
number of the residents of the city I have the honor to represent in part 
on this floor, should I remain silent on this occasion. I come not, how- 
ever, with any elaborate eulogy. My acquaintance with Senator Chand- 
ler was very brief. I saw him for the first time in March last, at the 
extra session. My contact with him was but slight. I cannot, tlierefore, 
speak of him either from long acquaintance or intimate relations. But it 
does so happen that the last great speech made 1>y the Senator was delivered 
in the congressional district which I have the honor to represent. On 
the evening of the delivery of that speech I called upon him at the Grand 
Pacific Hotel in Chicago. I had a cordial gi'eeting — a long and a pleasant 
interview. As I recall his stalwait form, and bluff, hearty manner, I 
feel like exclaiming. 

And shall I see his face again, 
And shall I hear him speak ? 

I went with him to the hall, I sat upon the platform. I saw him face 
as fine a political audience as was ever assemliled together, and I heard 
him deliver one of the grandest speeches ever uttered upon tliis continent. 
I shall not attempt to describe the enthusiasm of that occasion. Mr. 
Chandler had never spoken in this great city before, and he informed 
one of liis most intimate friends who Avas with him that he regarded it 
as the peculiar and crowning honor of his life that lie had been invited to 
speak in the great commercial metropolis of the Northwest. He seemed 
to regard it as somewhat of a recognition of the position which he had at 
last reached in the estimation of this country. No man ever had a greater 
triumph. The great city of the lakes was never moved by an orator in 
that manner before. The echoes of tliat speech rung out through the 
Northwest like the clear, strong blast of a bugle. 

I saw the Senator retire from that platform amid the thunders of ap- 
plause and bearing on his brow the laurels he had won. He had given 
upon that occasion the most decisive evidence of oratorical power by the 
manner in which he moved and controlled that vast multitude assembled 
to hear him. 



But, sir, the scene changes. On the morrow I stand by his cold and 
lifeless form. 

The present moment is our ain, 
The niest we never saw. 

Mr. Speaker, as one of the escort I went with the remains of the dis- 
tinyruisheddeadtothecity of Detroit. Amid the hush of his awe-stricken 
friends we laid him down. Illinois to Micliigan delivered up the il- 
lustrious dead. 

Mr. Speaker, among the patriotic names of this country that of Senator 
Chandler is written high up, Miiere it may be read by all the ages. You 
cannot erase it Avithout tearing from the records one of the most impor- 
tant chapters in the history of humanity, (ilory to his memory ! Peace 
to his ashes ! 

Mr. GARFIELD. Mr. Cliairman, it cannot be too late, however late 
tlie hour, to pay our trilnite of respect and affection to the memory of 
Zaciiariah Ciiandleu. 

There is a thought in connection with his life and the history of his 
State which has been referred to by the gentleman from Xew .Jersey, [Mr. 
Robeson.] and which may be still hirther developed. It only lacks two 
years of l)eing a full century since I^ewis Cass was born, and he and 
Zachariaii Ciiaxdler have filled seventy-three years of that period 
with active, prominent public service. And through all those seventy- 
three years there has shone like a star in both their lives the influence of 
one great event. 

In tlie stormy spring of ISBl, when the foundations of the Republic 
tremljled under the tread of assembling armies, I made a pilgrimage to 
tlie liome of the venerable Lewis Cass, who had just laid down his great 
odice as cliief of the State Department and, for an hour, I was a reverent 
listener to liis words of wisdom. And in that conversation lie gave me 
the thought which I wish to record. He said, '• You remember, young 
man, that the Constitution did not take effect until nine States had rati- 
fied it. My native State was the ninth. It hung a long time in doubtful 
scale whether nine would agree ; but when at last New Ilarapsliire rati- 
fied the Constitution, it was a day of great rejoicing. My mother held 
me. a little boy of six years, in her arms at a windoAV and pointed me to 
a great man on horseback and to the bonfires that were blazing in the 
streets of Exeter, and told me that the horseman Avas General Washing- 
ton and the people were celebrating the adoption of the Constitution."" 
'• So," said the aged statesman, " I saw the Constitution born, and I fear 
I may see it die." 

He then traced briefly the singular story of his life. He said : ''I 
crossed the Alleghany Mountains and settled in your State of Ohio one 
year before the beginning of this century. Fifty-four years ago noAv I 
sat in the General Assembly of your State. In 1807 I received from 
Thomas Jefferson a commission as United States marshal Avhich 1 still 
preserve, and am probably the only man living to-day Avho bears a 
commission from .Jefferson's hand." And so, rvmning over the great le- 
trospect of his life and saddened by bloody prospect that ISUI brought to 
his mind, he said, ''I haA^e loved the Union ever since the light of that 
bonfire and the sight of General Washington greeted my eyes. I have 
given fifty-five years of my life and my best efforts to its preservation. I 
fear I am doomed to see it perish." 

But a Ijetter fate aAvaited both him and tlie Union. Another son of 
New Hampshire took up the truncheon of power from his failing hand, 
and, with tlie vigor of youth and lilterty, maintained and defended the 
Union through the years of its supremest peril. Zachariaii Chandlkr, 
whose birthplace was not more than thirty miles distant from that of 



Lewis Cass, resumed the duty as Michigan's Senator Avith the vigor of 
young and hopeful manhood. And he pushed forward that great work 
until his last hour, and died in the full glory of its achievement. The 
State of New Hampshire may look upon this day and these names we cel- 
ebrate as her pride and special glory. 

Tlie great Carlyle has said that the best gift God ever gave to man was 
an eye that could really see ; and that only a few men were recipients of 
that gift. 1 venture to add that an equally rare and not less important 
gift is the courage to tell just what one sees. Besides having an eye, 
Z AciiARiAii Chandler was endowed in an eminent degree with the cour- 
age to tell just what he saw. 

If from these seats, Mr. Speaker, every Eepresentative should speak out 
the very inmost thought of the people he represents, this Hall would be 
luminous with the spirit and aspirations of the American people. The 
ruling principle of Mr. Ciiandlp^u's life was this : that what he saw in 
public affairs he uttered ; and having said it, stood by it — not Avith malice 
or arrogance, but with the sturdiness of thorough conviction. To a 
stranger he might, perhaps, appear rugged and harsh— even to cruelty ; 
yet his heart was full of gentleness when he had satisfied his sense of 
duty. 

As a political force Mr. Chandler may be classed among the Cyclo- 
pean figures of history. The aSTorsemen would have enrolled him among 
the heroes in the halls of Valhalla. They would have associated him with 
Thor and his thunder hammer. The liomans would have associated him 
with Vulcan and the forges of the Cyclops, who made the earth tremble 
under the weight of his strokes. 

What man have we known who, without specially cultivating the graces 
of oratory, was able to condense into ten minutes a more enduring 
speech than the one which he delivered at the extra session of 1870 ? Un- 
der the pressure of his intense mind, an hour of ordinary speecli was con- 
densed into a sentence. 

He was not an orator in the ordinary sense of fine writing and grace- 
ful delivery ; but, in the clearness of his conceptions and the courage and 
force with which he uttered them, he was a most remarkable speaker. 

Somebody said long ago that ''one man with a belief was a greater power 
than ten thousand who'have only interests." Mr. Chandler was em- 
phatically a man with a belief. 

In the minds of most men the kingdom of opinion is divided into three 
territories— the territory of yes, the territory of no, and a broad, unex- 
plored middle ground of doubt. That middle ground in the mind of Mr. 
Chandler was very narrow\ Nearly all his territory was occupied by 
positive convictions. On most questions his mind was made up more 
completely than that of any man I have known. 

His was an intense nature- 
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
The love of love. 

It is curious to observe that, as a general rule, long service in a legisla- 
tive minority unfits a man for the duties that devolve upon a majority. 
The business of the one is to attack, of the other to defend ; of tlie one 
to tear down, of the other to build up. 

The leaders of the anti-slavery struggle in this country were, perhaps, 
the most skillful in assault of any political party in our history. But 
when, after years of service in the minority, they came into power, but 
few of their prominent leaders were fit for the constructive work of 
maintaining an administration. Mr. Chandler was one of that small 
number who displayed, in constructive legislation, abilities fully equal to 
those which he exhibited as a member of the minority. His administra- 



j^^B^^^sm 



tion of the Interior Department was an ample vindication of his high 
qnalities as an executive officer. 

This Congress will miss him in its councils. ITis party and his State 
will greatly miss him. I know lie is sincerely mourned in my own State, 
where within tliree weeks of the hour of his death I ha.d tlie lionor to j»re- 
side over the largest political assemblage I have seen in many years. The 
name of Za('Iiakiaii Chandler called together tliat great multitude, 
wlio sat at his feet and listened with reverence and enthusiasm. 

Reviewing his life and summing up his qualities, Ave may fitly apply to 
him the words which the laureate of England applied to Wellington : 

O iron nerve, to true occasion true, 

O faUen at length, that tower of strenp:th, 

Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew. 

Mr. WILLITS. Zaciiartati Chandler needs no eulogy to perpetu- 
ate his name in the State of Alichigan ; his nineteen years' service in the 
Senate of the United States is recorded in the annals of that distin- 
guished body ; and nothing that we can say to-day can add to or diminish 
his fame. His public like his private life was an active one and was well- 
known and conspicuous from the first. March 4, 1857, he succeeded in 
the Senate of the United States a statesman long honored by the State of 
Michigan ; who had taken a leading part in its early history, having been 
its Territorial governor from 1S18 to 1830 ; who had for four years been 
Secretary of War under Andrew Jackson, seven years minister to France 
under Jackson and Van Ikiren, the candidate of a great party for the 
for the office of Chief Executive of the nation. Senator of the United 
States, and finally Secretary of State under James Buchanan. It Avas 
sucli a man as this Zachakiah Chandler succeeded ; a man wlio had 
gathered to himself the honors of two continents, conferred dignity ui)on 
every position he had occupied, and for half a century had added leaf 
after leaf to the well-filled chaplet that had fallen so fittingly upon his 
broAV. Lewis Cass Avas an honored name in the State of Michigan ; it 
Avas a household word in the homes of the hardy pioneers Avho liad fol- 
loAved him into the new State he laad helped to foutid. Their children in 
like manner revered the man aa'Iio had extinguished the Indian title to 
the lands they now occupied and had made a name historic in the annals 
of his country. 

It Avas no Avhim that relegated Lewis Cass to priA'ate life. It Avas no 
accident that brought Zachariaii Chandler to the front instead. The 
people of the Peninsular State are not volatile or^visionai-y, or forgetful 
of those Avho have shown themselves Avorthy of honor. There is none of 
the feeling exhibited by the Athenian clown, as related by riutarch, avIio 
was tired of hearing Aristides everyAvhere called the Just. The State of 
Michigan was in no just sense unmindful of the great Avorth of LeAvis 
Cass, and Avould have delighted to continue him in the high i)Osition he 
had so justly attained, if events had not conspired to render it impossi- 
ble. With tliese events he had failed to keep himself fully abreast. There 
are times when public sentiment Avill not endure a political laggard. 
Lewis Cass, with all his breadth of intellect, Avith the experience of a 
statesman and the amenities of the finished scholar aiul gentleman, AA^as 
not a positive man, Avas not an original man. Times Avere on the thresh- 
old AA^hen both of these qualities AA'ere to be needed. He Avas a true man 
at heart, loyal to his country, and so honest that, AAiien at hist he saAv the 
fallacy of his position, he resigned his high place rather than compromise 
his fealty to the Union. But he AA'as too old to fight, and he Avas unable 
to devise a plan to still the AA'aves of the rising revolution. lie had to 
give AA'ay to a sentiment he had been sIoav to perceive and utterly unable 
to comprehend. 

Among those who had been quick to percei\'e the logic of events was 



the man wliom we honor to-day. He was selected by the people of the 
State of ISIichigan to succeed Lewis Cass ; not because he had had large 
experience in jiolitical affairs, for he had had none ; not because he had 
culture and refinement, for he had neither, as understood in the school or 
the drawing-room ; not because he was learned in the law, or skilled in 
the arts of diplomacy, for he was wont to boast that he cared for neither 
the abtruseness of the one nor the duplicity of the other ; but he was se- 
lected because he was a strong, positive man who was in full sympathy 
with the revolt against the political tendencies of the party in power, and 
with which Lewis Cass had been identified for half a century ; he was se- 
lected because he was a hearty hater of sham, an opponent of the compro- 
mises that had insidiously taken more than they had purported to give, 
and demanded more than the people of his State were disposed to yield ; 
because, in the " irrepressible conflict " then impending, he was on the 
side of the liberty which the fathers had aspired to, but from which the 
sons had apostatized. In all these characteristics he was the representa- 
tive of his people, who had the utmost confidence in his integrity, strong 
common sense, and positive adherence to the convictions born of this 
common sense. 

From the advent of Zachariah Chandler in the Senate of the United 
States to the end of his career, so unexpectedly terminated, he justified 
the confidence reposed in him. In the terrible conflict that convulsed the 
land he was an important factor, moving and controlling events and poli- 
cies by the tremendous force of his will and the dictation of a restless 
energy. Untrammeled by the subtleties of the dialectician, he held in 
supreme contempt tlie paltering hesitation of generals and the doubting 
quibbles of lawyers in the face of an armed enemy. To him war had its 
own laws, construed by the supreme necessity of the hour and enforced 
by the musket ; the road to essential justice was in a straight line, with 
no devious paths leading into an ambush. Emancipation of the negro 
race, prom])t, decisive, by proclamation, ])resented to him no legal diffi- 
culties. He Avould utilize the force which might be let loose upon rebel- 
lion, and would for all time take from the master the slave for whose 
thraldom he had risen in arms against the Union ; retributive justice 
should supplement unwarranted revolution. 

He was restless over the delay of the proclamation, and when the pre- 
liminary one had been issued in September, 1862, he had none of the fears 
and doubts of the conservatives who protested against it as unconstitu- 
tional and sought to have it recalled. In the intervening months he vis- 
ited Washington, before the final proclamation was issued, to counteract, 
by his presence and his positive views, the effort to have the step abandoned. 
On his return I met him at the depot, at my own home, and was informed 
exultingly : " Lincoln will stick." In all these years he seemed to com- 
prehend by inspiration what some men never learned at all or acquired 
only by experience. He was not swept along by the tide ; he was a com- 
ponent part of the tide itself — one of the forces of the times, one of the 
men who make history. Nevertheless, he was not much given to speech- 
making, or formulating statutes. The records of Congress do not show 
for him as much, measured by the square foot, as for the long line of 
disputatious spouters who have gone to the same graves as the speeches 
they made. He would never have devised the electoral commission ; he 
could not have done so if he would ; but he sujiplemented it with organ- 
ized facts without which its findings would have had altogether another 
termination. 

He was a practical man not given to theories ; not like Archimedes, 
who from principles elaborated in his study constructed his pulleys and 
engines, the use of which demolished the Roman fleet, and played pitch 
and toss with the Roman ships; but rather like Marcellus, who in his prac- 
tical way captured the unguarded tower which overlooked doomed Syra- 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER, 67 

case. He was a man of affairs. By his own exertions he made an inde- 
pendent fortune, of whicli lie never stole a cent. No man ever charged 
iiim with larceny, or hypocrisy, or lukewarmness to a friend, or placahil- 
ity to a foe, or cowardly desertion of a conviction, or compromise of a 
l)rinciple. He was a generons fighter, who never fired a musket with 
hostile intent, and yet worthily earned the title of Michigan's great war 
Senator. Over this title no worthy soldier on the shores of the great lakes 
of the Northwest has ever been captious or envious. He was the sol- 
diers' friend, and he divided witli tliem the high esteem in which they 
held all the moving spirits in the great contest in whicli loyal men shed 
so much of their loyal blood. None have mourned his untimely death 
more than the heroes of that war, and when the news of his death was 
sent to the ends of the globe on the morning of the 1st day of November 
last, none bowed with a heartier sorrow over the memory of the man 
they revered than the men who had so faithfully in the field vindicated 
the policy advocated by the illustrious Senator in the councils of the 
nation. 

When the sad news reached me, I was on my journey home from Chi- 
cago. I had parted with him the midnight before. I was the last man 
that saw Senator CnANDLER alive. I now and shall to my latest hour 
recall the room in the Grand Pacific Hotel in which we had this last inter- 
view. The fire was burning low ; the hotel was as silent as the grave in 
which he now lies ; we were as much alone as if we sat by a solitary camp- 
fire in the pathless desert. After about twenty minutes' conversation I 
left him alone with Death stealing over the threshold of his room. I did 
not see him there, but is it my imagination that recalls footfalls as I 
passed along the silent, dimly-lighted corridors to my own room ! As the 
recollection comes to me, it seems as though these echoes may have been 
the footfalls of the grim destroyer who so closely follows the steps of 
mortal man. I recollect now that tliere was a sense of something unsaid, 
what it was I cannot recall, that led me to stop and turn back as if to rap 
at his door and speak to him again ; but knoAving he was weary I refrained, 
and went my lonely wav. I can hardly wish now that I had followed the 
impulse, for it is unlikely that my ])resence would have changed the 
purpose of that Providence that holds the issue of life and had then 
marked him for death ; but who knows what parting word might have 
been said? "Who knows but the impulse I had may have been only a 
response to one he himself had, and which had spoken to me as spirit 
talketh to spirit, calling for some word of sympathy, some kind remem- 
brance ? But he is gone, and I shall never know whether he called or 
not till we again meet face to face. Till then I can only join with the 
multitude of mourners in lamenting the great loss we all sustained in the 
loss of a great man, and in laying this last token upon his grave. 

I move the adoption of the resolutions. 

The question being taken on the resolutions, they were adopted unani- 
mously ; and in obedience to the second resolution the House (at six 
o'clock and twelve minutes p. m.) adjourned. 






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